


Cri de Cœur [The Heart's Cry]

by kelleigh (girlfromcarolina)



Series: The Holy City [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 11, Based On A Short Story, Big Bang Challenge, Blow Jobs, Campbell Family, Campbell Hunters, Case Fic, Charleston, Frottage, Historical References, Kissing, M/M, Men of Letters, References to Preseries Wincest, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Season/Series 12 Speculation, Shower Sex, Supernatural and J2 Big Bang Challenge 2016, The Yellow Wallpaper, ghost story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 03:07:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7249606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlfromcarolina/pseuds/kelleigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean could use a break after banishing God’s sister to the far reaches of oblivion. However, a new case drops into their laps when they receive a message sent to the Men of Letters using a strange old code. The name <i>Campbell</i> makes it impossible for them to refuse. The hunt takes the Winchesters back to Charleston, South Carolina, a city they haven’t been through in almost twenty years. It plunges them into the obscure and bloody history of an old plantation where ghost sightings and a consuming madness mean the clock is ticking. </p><p>Using every resource they have, including the help of the last Campbell ancestor in the South, the testimony of a powerless ghost, and the expertise of a handsome young historian, Sam and Dean need to uncover the truth behind the haunting before it claims another innocent victim. Based on the short story, <span class="u">The Yellow Wallpaper</span>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in an imagined Season 12 and thoroughly ignores the majority of Season 11. In my version, Chuck never got involved, they were able to banish Lucifer again, and Sam and Dean were forced to find a way to lock Amara back in her cage. This was my attempt at writing an ‘episode’ of Supernatural.
> 
> While technically a sequel, this can be read as a stand-alone. All you need to know is that Dean and Sam’s relationship ended when Sam left for Stanford and hasn’t resumed. The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story penned by American author Charlotte Perkins Gilman and it is fabulous. A must read.
> 
> Written for the **2016 Supernatural and J2 Big Bang**.  
>  The LJ Master Post can be found here:  
> Go and check out the art on AO3 [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7235638).

“C’mon, I know it's here somewhere.”

Edmond Tallier rummages through the antique cabinet in the master bedroom, cursing at the kicked-up dust that invades his sinus passages. Finally, his fingers brush across the smooth, unmistakable texture of tanned leather. He closes his hand around the old journal and pulls it into the light.

It’s thicker than Edmond remembers, and although he recognizes the bizarre symbols embossed on the cover, the meanings are beyond him. However, he does know that the information he’s looking for is hidden somewhere in this unusual piece of family history.

He flips hastily through the yellowed pages, past rough sketches and haphazard notations, past blocks of text written in languages Edmond can't translate. Halfway through the journal, he finds a piece of lined formerly-white paper. The top edge is ragged, as if it was torn from a legal pad.

“Here we go,” Edmond mutters, unfolding the paper and reading the message written in familiar looped handwriting.

**In case of emergency  
call this number  
7-181-99  
use the phone in the upstairs study**

The phone number makes no sense. There are no other digits written on the paper. Edmond only knows of one phone in the upstairs study: an ancient teal rotary model that belonged to Edmond’s aunt. He always assumed it connected to the old landline, though he hasn't received a bill since the ownership of his aunt’s house transferred to him.

Edmond takes a deep breath and closes the journal. Aunt Jocelyn would be ashamed if she were alive to see how her things have been treated, sold off or left to gather dust in places such as this curious cabinet with its unintelligible markings, the one she warned Edmond never to open by any other means than with the key she left to him. He vows to do better by her memory as soon as he deals with... whatever this is.

In Jocelyn’s study, Edmond picks up the receiver of the outdated phone. The weight of it is awkward in his hand. 

It takes him two tries to dial the rotary correctly. He hasn't used this phone since he was a child playing at his aunt’s house. He used to be fascinated by her books and the tales of monsters they contained, quite unlike anything he checked out from the library.

He dials the sequence of numbers he found in the old journal and waits. He hears nothing: no dial tone, no relay, no clicks. Yet, somehow, he knows the line isn't dead.

“Please let this work.”

Edmond waits fifteen seconds. He's about to hang up when he hears a low tone followed by a peculiar hollow sound. Then, this: 

“Code 442. SC 181 acknowledged. Please state your situation.”

The recorded voice sounds more mechanical than human, although it's nothing like the automated responses from corporate call centers and helplines. Edmond listens to the faint static for a few more seconds. He's come this far, he might as well see what happens.

“Um, hello.” He pauses before realizing it’s probably foolish to expect a response. “My name is Edmond Tallier. I'm not really sure who I'm calling, only that my late aunt told me to use this number if—well, if something…”

He needs a moment to gather his thoughts, to organize them into something close to coherence. If this works, great. If it doesn't, Edmond hopes no one ever hears how crazy he will sound. 

“My aunt’s name was Jocelyn Campbell, and she told me to call this number if I ever saw a ghost.”

Sayuri Benbow listens to the breeze struggling to make its way through the massive oak trees. Centuries old, their twisted trunks surround the property in a thick line. She knows the wind’s cool touch will likely never reach the house. She stands almost completely in shadow but for a faint green glow as the last rays of tonight’s sunset diffuse through fresh spring growth.

Behind her, the French doors to the balcony are thrown wide open, desperate to entice even the faintest breeze into the house’s former nursery. The air is always so stagnant in there, heavy with whisper and memory.

Fanciful. That’s what Max calls her when she says things like that.

Sayuri decided to turn this particular room into her office when they moved into this old South Carolina plantation house. Their real estate agent called this space a nursery, but Sayuri can’t imagine her baby within these four walls. The balcony she’s standing on is idyllic, Southern-charm perfection looking out onto the oak-lined avenue leading to the manor, but the space it guards is wrong, placed so far from the other bedrooms, a cracked ceiling, no natural air flow…

And that hideous yellow wallpaper. 

The aged paper is visually abhorrent, a sulfurous forest of gnarled branches and vines choking invisible figures. Mustard thorns threaten, rotting flowers decay. A nightmare in brittle, peeling paper that haunts Sayuri long after she’s left the room. 

When Max saw the wallpaper, he told Sayuri she ought to rip it out despite the agent’s caution against renovations. It’s only a rental, their agent reminded them. Regardless, Sayuri considered taking drastic action, but each time she tried to work up the gumption, the energy seemed to drain right out of her.

It will be a year until their new house is finished. Sayuri has seen the plans: a large home with an open floor plan situated on a waterfront lot in one of the neighborhoods closer to downtown Charleston. Until then, she has to endure twelve months living on this old, isolated estate because Max wanted the full Southern experience. Not that her husband spends any time here, his presence demanded downtown more often than not. The hospital wasted no time putting their new specialist to good use.

She wonders what drew Max to this property. Besides the rent being inexplicably low for a house this large. Their local agent didn’t have much to say on the subject, claiming it was because Nine Oaks was so far from Charleston. Sayuri has her suspicions, though. Her minimal online research hadn’t shed much light on the subject, only more questions involving a lack of heirs and legal troubles.

At first, the idea seemed romantic. Sayuri saw the possibilities—a new blog dedicated to Southern living, rediscovering her love of her work. That spark sustained her through the move only to be snuffed out on the first night she spent in the house. Restless and agitated, she told Max the house felt strange.

He blamed it on her overactive imagination and promised he’d write a prescription for a sleep aid as soon as he could.

She turns back to the view outside, wide grounds now fully enveloped by the darkness. Standing here, it’s easy to lose time. Soon, the barest hints of silver moonlight will descend on the oaks; a view that’s worth waiting for, even if she’s already uncomfortable. She’s sweating in the late spring humidity, black hair limp on her shoulders, thin green t-shirt clinging to her skin. Going back inside means facing those swirling ochre spirals that make her dizzy, so she stays. 

Anna’s with the baby, her time paid for by Max’s new position, leaving Sayuri free to find ‘whatever makes her happy’. Her husband’s words. As if that’s what will help her out of her persistent mood. He’s a practical man, a scientist at heart; he believes Sayuri needs nothing more than fresh air and a chance to relax.

She stares out past the gravel drive, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. Between two of the oak trees, a pool of moonlight begins to ripple, shapes moving through the silver light. Almost as if the moon has found a hidden statue and unveiled it for the night to see.

Apparently Sayuri is more exhausted than she thought.

She snaps a photo with her phone. If nothing else, the picture will make for an interesting post on the blog she hasn’t felt like updating in days.

Closing the balcony doors, she does her best not to glance at the wallpaper on her way out of the room.

Outside, a pale and ephemerous hand emerges from the silver pool and reaches towards the balcony.


	2. Chapter 2

“Tell you what, man, I'm ready to just kick back, have a beer, and pretend this weekend never happened.”

“That might take more than one beer,” Sam points out as Dean trudges down the stairs into the bunker. Sam drops his bag on the table and rolls his shoulders to loosen one of the many knots in his muscles. 

Aches and pains are just a few of the reasons hunting gets harder as they get older.

“Good thing I bought a whole case right before we left.”

“Fine. You go grab us a couple of those, I’m gonna go check on the system.”

Dean leaves his bag next to Sam’s before hitting up the kitchen. By the smell, something in the refrigerator has spoiled since they left for the Catskills to track down a nature spirit that had turned vengeful and started devouring campers. Beer’s still good, though.

“The system…” Dean mutters to himself, popping the bottle cap with a swift flick of his ring finger. “More like an antique piece of junk metal.”

He doesn't trust the room-sized computer and relay station, even after Charlie's thorough work to streamline the entire thing into their own personal Men of Letters iPhone app.

Things like that are better left to Sam. Sitting in front of the terminal reminds Dean too much of their friend.

He strolls through the bunker taking sips from his bottle. The sight of their bags on the table reminds Dean that he should probably start unpacking before Sam comes back. His mind is still circling their last hunt, however. The first one in months that’s felt anywhere close to normal.

Caging the Darkness— _Amara_ —felt like a victory. The consequences rendered Dean totally fubar. The void left by her near destruction and banishment hurt for weeks, non-stop stabbing pains no amount of cheap alcohol could dull. She’d carved out his insides, left him hollow. If he’d known this would happen, maybe he would have stopped Sam from locking Amara’s prison. Or shoved his way inside.

Time and distance tell Dean they did the right thing. Sam saved his ass, took the brunt of Amara’s wrath when Dean couldn’t intervene, and Dean is more grateful than words can express. He just wishes he could’ve avoided the withdrawal.

Like a recovering addict, every day has been a test. First he couldn’t get out of bed without collapsing into a shaking heap on the bunker floor. Castiel couldn’t help him, either. After a week of trying, Sam passed along the message that the angel would be more effective back in heaven dealing with that bureaucratic nightmare.

It was Sam who took care of him; his brother’s unique brand of mother-henning got Dean out of his bed, then out of the bunker to face a world that couldn’t wrap its head around the biblical-level insanity of the last few months.

The Winchesters waited. For weeks they braced themselves for the next battle. Caging Amara came with consequences, didn’t it? But nothing came. No revelations, no destruction, no bigger, badder force to reckon with.

If the only thing left wrecked in the aftermath was Dean himself, he’d take it.

Sam began researching hunts after that. The first few were softballs to ease them back into the rhythm. To make sure Dean could. Together they salted and burned their way through a handful of straightforward cases, Sam remaining cautious. He breathed easier once Dean’s physical symptoms faded.

He couldn’t do anything about the other effects, the ones Dean kept buried as much as he could.

Amara’s curse—her parting gift—left Dean with a need to fill the void she once occupied in his soul. And he knows that he’s a terminal case. If he doesn’t find something, someone to hold him together, the pain will consume him until nothing remains but the empty husk of a washed-up hunter. It may take months, it may take years, but Dean won’t survive the emptiness.

He hasn’t told Sam.

Dean is finishing his first beer when Sam calls out.

“Dean! You better come listen to this!”

Shoving aside the thought of his own impending doom, Dean follows his brother’s echo through the bunker’s halls and finds Sam at the transmission board fiddling with a screen they've never used. The whole apparatus looks too clunky and intimidating for Dean. Sam, on the other hand, is familiar with all the knobs and readouts.

“Someone called us.”

“The bunker has a phone number?” Dean asks, surprised. “Are we listed in the yellow pages or something?”

Sam presses a button and static fills the room. “I think whoever called was using some sort of code. Hang on, just listen.”

Dean leans over the back of Sam's chair, inhaling the clean minty-fresh scent of Sam's shampoo. As the recording begins, he immediately notes the gentle southern accent in the nervous introduction.

_“Um, hello. My name is Edmond Tallier. I'm not entirely sure who I'm calling, only that my late aunt told me to use this if—well, if something…”_

“Is that it?” Dean looks at Sam when the voice hesitates, a good ten seconds of white noise following that.

Sam shakes his head. “There's more. Just wait.”

_“My aunt’s name was Jocelyn Campbell, and she told me to call this number if I ever saw a ghost.”_

“Campbell? As in _the_ Campbells? What the hell is this, Sam?”

“Come on, just listen to the rest.”

_“I know they're real, which may sounds crazy, but my aunt knew all about them. Which is why I'm going to assume that whoever may be listening knows that, too. Jocelyn left me this number—more of a code I'd say—in a warded chest for emergencies._

_“There's an estate nearby, just outside of Charleston, South Carolina, that I was meant to keep an eye on after she passed away. Told me it was haunted, but I'd never seen proof until tonight. Now, I don't know who you are, or how you can help me, but I don't know what to do. Call me, please.”_

Sam is quick to type the man’s number into his cell phone, staring at it after the recording ends. The red light on the transmission board stops blinking.

“He sounded scared.”

“Not a hunter, then,” Dean muses. A hunter asking for aid would've given them specifics.

At the mention of Charleston, Dean’s mind makes the journey back to long, lazy afternoons in an old beachfront motel. Sand warming the space between his toes and the texture of his younger brother’s skin after it turned brown in the sun. The peace that could be found on a stretch of empty coastline, just Dean and Sam and the Atlantic Ocean stretched out before them.

Sam is focused on the message, oblivious to Dean’s mental wanderings. He plays it again.

“Jocelyn Campbell. The name can't be a coincidence.”

“He mentioned a warded chest,” Dean points out. “Something a hunter in the Campbell family would know how to create and use.”

“I've never heard of a code before.”

Dean gives it a moment of consideration. “Makes sense though, right? Hunters would need a way to contact the Men of Letters that wouldn't go through regular channels.” He laughs. “Would've been nice to know, huh?”

Sam frowns. “They were all dead, Dean. Remember? And now it's just us.”

That's the way Dean prefers it. Living in the bunker with only his brother for company makes it feel like they own it. As if it's a home instead of a base.

“And if it is just us,” Sam continues, “we ought to help. That's what we do, right?”

Sam’s voice wavers on the last part, and Dean knows what’s running through his brother’s mind. Keeping the balance is paramount. Caging Amara hadn’t brought about the next apocalypse, and the Winchesters intend on having it remain that way. If that means laying low and taking on these routine hunts, then so be it. They can’t wreak any more havoc on the world.

If other hunters can do their jobs without opening gates to Hell or causing the angels to fall, so can Sam and Dean.

“Sounds like a basic haunting. Ghost of an estate. Classic.”

“Be nice if it's that simple.” Sam sighs and stands, stretching out his back. Dean waits for the inevitable wince that follows. “You know, I'm pretty sure I've seen lists of hunters and their families in the records room. Maybe I can find Jocelyn Campbell, see how her family might've related to Samuel.”

 _And to Mom_ is added silently by both of them.

While Sam communes with his precious records, Dean uses his phone to dial Edmond Tallier’s number.

The same nervous, accented voice picks up after the second ring.

“You're an expert in these matters?” Tallier asks after Dean explained how they received his message.

“Something like that,” Dean assures him. 

Tallier sighs, some of the reticence dropped from his words. “To be quite frank, I didn't think I'd hear back from anyone. My aunt was never... specific about what the number would do.”

“Your aunt,” Dean broaches, stomach heavy, “she knew about the supernatural?”

“She was a hunter, Mr. Winchester. I gather you know what that means. She was largely retired in the time I knew her. Concentrating on family and such.”

“Not you, though?”

“A hunter?” Tallier laughs, composed. So different from what Dean is used to when he's scouting a hunt. “I'm afraid the closest I'd been to a ghost before last week were Jocelyn’s stories. I don't believe I have the constitution for such a thing.”

Dean asks, “And you're sure you saw a ghost?”

“Never been more sure,” the Southerner says with conviction. “It was just like Jocelyn said. A flickering specter, gray like a storm cloud. Even if my eyes were playing tricks on me, it wouldn't explain the _feeling_. Like ice water running down my spine, air gone cold and wrong, sir.”

It feels strange, picking up a hunt this way. For so long it's been just Dean and Sam combing the papers and trolling the internet for hints and possibilities. Maybe this is the way the Men of Letters once operated, dispatching cases to the ranks of trusted hunters.

Now, Dean and Sam serve as research, dispatch, and trigger men, all in one.

“What about the estate you mentioned?”

“Empty for decades,” Tallier tells him, “until now. It's been spiffed up and cleaned out.” He takes a deep breath. “Guess there are some things you just can't get rid of, right?”

“Does this place have a name?”

“Oh yes, quite a history, too. Nine Oaks Plantation. You look that up, you'll see what I mean.”

Sam hits pay dirt with a volume of genealogies.

Jocelyn Campbell was listed as the youngest of three children. Her father passed away in the 1950’s. A simple handwritten notation next to his name stated _‘full moon’_. For the rest, Sam went hunting for online records armed with the names of Jocelyn’s mother and siblings. It appeared her mother lived until 1981 and her two older brothers both died within the last decade. Their children were scattered across the country. Sam found no hints of the Campbells’ hunting legacies continuing with any of them.

Sam shares all of this before pushing another yellowed tome in front of Dean.

“Check it out.”

Dean frowns at line after line of handwritten notes. “What am I looking at?”

“You were right,” Sam says in lieu of an answer. “Jocelyn’s grandfather and Samuel’s grandfather were brothers.”

“Seriously?” Dean takes a closer look at the tables in Sam’s precious book. Sure enough, he finds the connection several generations back. “The Campbells sure knew how to procreate, man. Lots of births.”

“Lots of deaths, too,” Sam points out somberly. “Most of the people born with the Campbell name didn’t live past their twenties. Makes sense if the majority of them were hunters.”

Dean’s voice is flat when he says, “Look at us, Sammy. Defying the odds.”

Neither of them point out the number of times they’ve died already. Tends to ruins the mood.

“Guess this ghost down South is looking more and more like a family obligation.”

Sam’s gaze cuts across the table. “If you want to take a break, I could call someone else. Maybe Jesse and Cesar know someone who could take over—”

“We can handle this.”

Sam gives him a long look. When he continues, rationality keeps his tone level and metered. “We can take a couple of days, research from here. We’ll know what we’re getting into. Besides, Tallier only said he saw a ghost. He never said it was causing any trouble.”

“You’re the one who said we needed to help,” Dean throws back. “Even before you found out that Jocelyn Campbell was related to Samuel.”

“Distantly.”

“‘That’s what we do.’ Your words, Sam.”

It makes sense. Their bags are still packed, lying side by side on one of the tables in the library. He doesn’t relish the thought of getting back on the road again so soon, but having a hunt right in front of him is better than any of his other options. Better than staying here to face Sam with the knowledge that he’s deteriorating further each and every day.

“What happened to kicking back and having a beer?” Sam asks, sliding the book away from Dean and shutting it. There’s nothing quite like the smell of aged paper and the glue holding it all together.

“You’re the one who decided to check the voicemail,” Dean grumbles. He makes sure Sam hears him. His brother’s expression doesn’t change, though. Guarded acceptance, the tension at the corner of his mouth meaning he’s still trying to work out an argument that will keep Dean in the bunker for a few more days.

Dean sighs. “We’ll take the night, okay? It’s at least a full day’s drive down there and we need some supplies. That sound good to you?”

Sam looks tired when he smiles, but it’s bright all the same. Dean tries not to let that get to him.

“In the meantime, you can check out that estate Tallier mentioned. Must be something there if his aunt left instructions to watch over the place.”

“You’re thinking one ghost that’s been around for a while?”

The rest of the six-pack is calling to Dean from the kitchen. Can’t let it go to waste if they’re hitting the road again tomorrow. If nothing else, it might help him relax. Dull the edges around the hole in his chest.

“You tell me, Sammy. Research is your department.”

Dean dreams of sweetgrass and mint, shadows playing across his skin, his knees bare and warm from mornings spent in the sun.

Nothing solid, only wisps pulled from memory. Long days and quiet nights. The sound of gentle waves hitting the shore. Salt on the air, thin limbs curled close.

Sam, young and eager. So optimistic. So unprepared for what was to come.


	3. Chapter 3

“Tallier wasn’t kidding when he said the place had a history.”

Sam’s knees are spread wide in the passenger seat to accommodate everything in his lap. Two books pulled from the Men of Letters’ library, a pad of white paper full of notes in Sam’s sharp, angled handwriting, a stack of printouts from various South Carolina newspapers and websites, and his tablet perched precariously on top of the pile.

The Impala roars as it passes the dented sign stating ‘ _Welcome to Oklahoma_!’ Passing through Kansas City would’ve saved them a couple of hours over this circuitous route, but Dean can never bring himself to drive through Lawrence.

Sam never comments on the choice.

“That planation? What the hell was it called?”

“Nine Oaks,” Sam reads from the notepad. “Built in 1813, the house was rebuilt after burning down in 1855. Nothing strange until the early 1900’s when there were a couple of suspicious deaths. No names, though,” he continues, long finger running down his page of notes until he finds the information he wants. “The Men of Letters actually had a few entries concerning the estate.”

“You mean they knew about it?”

Sam hums, reading further. “I can’t really tell if they took action or not. Most likely they just took down information provided by hunters. Probably Jocelyn’s family.”

“The entries say anything specific about what they were dealing with?”

“They weren’t that thorough,” Sam says. “All I could find were dates and a few lines saying things like _spectral activity_ and _female figure_ followed by numbers. I’m not really sure what they mean. More codes, I’m guessing.”

What Sam can tell Dean is that Nine Oaks continued to be a working plantation up until the 1950’s when, without explanation, most of the farmable land was sold off to neighboring estates, or to the state as public land. Sam tags that as suspicious.

It’s not much to go on, but they’ve worked with less, and their best source of information—Edmond Tallier himself—awaits them in Charleston.

A truck speeds down the narrow highway, the rumbling of its engine pulling Dean back from the brink of sleep. The Impala’s leather seat fits the curve of his back like memory foam, if that piece of foam was forty years old and smelled like pine, old asphalt, and _Winchester_.

Dean likes it.

He can hear Sam’s breathing in the backseat, and he knows the rhythm well enough to determine that Sam is awake, too.

“You want to keep going?”

“This is fine, Dean,” Sam says quietly. He insisted they find a good place alongside the lonely highway to hunker down for a few hours’ sleep. Nothing they haven’t done a thousand nights before. Dean in the front, Sam in the back. Duffle bags and coats as pillows. Sam’s the one who thought to grab a couple of thin blankets from the bunker for pit stops like this. Spring nights can be chilly in the midwest.

“You remember being down in Charleston when we were teenagers?” Dean asks. He hasn’t been able to shake his dream all day, playing the images back on a loop while he drove, basking in that sweetness and using it as a balm for his shredded soul.

It’s an entire minute before Sam says anything. Dean wishes he could see his brother’s face. It would tell him everything Sam is thinking.

“I remember Dad stashing us at a motel by the beach while he went off to hunt ghost pirates, or something like that.”

“Ghost pirates,” Dean huffs, smiling to himself. “I forgot about that.”

“We stayed there for a while, didn’t we?” The texture of Sam’s voice is soft; it settles over Dean like a second blanket. “When Dad left us in that motel, it felt like a regular vacation. Having that beach to ourselves, drinking sweet tea, you taking me to the library.”

“‘Cause you’d dragged us into a case,” Dean reminds him.

“The boo-hag,” Sam whispers as the memory washes over him. “That was the first hunt where you let me take the lead. I remember getting attacked by the boo-hag in the house of the woman who summoned it. You salted the thing so it couldn’t get back to its skin, basically killing it.”

That hunt has always stood out from the others. The way Sam, at only fifteen, took charge and led Dean from clue to clue. That’s when Dean learned he could trust Sam’s instincts. The kid had guts, no matter what. He knew then that his baby brother could be a fearsome hunter. One of the best.

Back then, realizing that made Dean happy and sad at the same time.

Sam’s breathing has slipped into a slow cadence. At least one of them won’t be totally sleep-deprived tomorrow. Dean became used to running on half a tank a long time ago.

While Sam dozes, Dean’s mind wanders to memories of those sun-soaked weeks they spent on the South Carolina coast. He pictures Sam at fifteen, arms and legs long and lean after shooting up four inches since the summer before. His hair taking on a bronzed sheen from the hours he spent out on the small stretch of sand behind the motel, in the water jumping through wave after wave while Dean watched, content, from the shadows of the palmetto trees that lined the grassy dunes.

Hunting with Sam felt so natural, so easy. It was different than working alongside Dad. Sam was his partner; they worked together. They balanced the scales. Dean was savvy, Sam was smart.

He knew it couldn’t last.

Dean remembers that fear. Waiting for Sam to turn his back on his family and leave the life behind. Leave Dean behind. The memory doesn’t cut as deeply anymore—he’s mostly left that fear behind. If nothing else, by this point both Winchesters are too wrecked for a normal life. Given current circumstances, that’s especially true for Dean.

In a strange way, it’s a comforting thought.

Dean has known that Sam was his other half since he was a teenager. Despite the chaos between then and now, between the heartbreaks and the reunions, between life and death, Dean still feels it.

Some things never change.

He hears Sam shuffling in the backseat, unconsciously making himself comfortable in the limited amount of space. Dean remembers the days, weeks, months when being together meant having Sam’s body alongside his, making the most of every night Dad left them on their own. Feeling no shame even though Sam was his brother. What they had went beyond the simple definition of family; they were _more_.

Unfortunately, as Dean found out, some things do change.

They hit Charleston early the next afternoon. Dean skirts the crowded downtown streets and heads south, crossing more than one river and cruising until neighborhoods and businesses give way to sparkling marshland and groves of trees. Traffic thins until the Impala is roaring along the four lane highway by itself, passing unmarked gravel roads and roadside stands selling everything from local fruits and vegetables to boiled peanuts and fireworks.

Meanwhile, Sam is on the lookout for the turn mentioned in Edmond Tallier’s directions. 

“It’s gotta be up ahead. Probably just around the next curve.” He points ahead to the next unpaved driveway. “I think this is it.”

Dean turns, the Impala’s tires crunching on the mix of gravel and packed dirt, and stares through the windshield at the gate standing open in front of them.

“Pretty sure you’re right about that.”

The gate is old but solid, dark lines of wrought iron crisscrossing over a maze of symbols. Most are recognizable but a few are beyond even Sam’s massive mental inventory. As if they needed further confirmation that they’ve found Jocelyn Campbell’s property, an intricate pentagram tops one of the gates.

“A freaking Devil’s Trap,” Sam mutters. “What do you bet the whole place is surrounded by iron and more gates like this?”

“A true hunter’s compound.” Dean thinks back to Samuel’s makeshift base and wonders if his grandfather had property like this when he was alive the first time.

He waits for Sam to look over, then smiles. “Don’t say I never took you anywhere nice, Sammy.”

A quarter-mile up the drive, a man is waiting on the wide front porch of a modest, two storey house. The white paint is badly faded, mildew growing up bannisters and along the trim, which isn’t surprising in such a humid climate. Oak trees loom over the house, thick branches twisting wide, Spanish moss draped here and there like soft stalactites hanging down. 

The grass is overgrown, windows cloudy, and yet Dean can tell with just a look that the bones of the house are solid and unshakeable. If this was truly a base of operations for the Campbells, there’s no doubt the house has seen its fair share of trouble and stood to tell the tale.

He appreciates it already.

The man watches the Impala pull up. In his late fifties, his skin is the color of dark toffee and his black hair has been pulled back into a proper knot. The frames of his glasses are thick, his tie is thin, and he moves comfortably down the stairs to meet them.

“I could hear the car coming up the drive,” he says. “She’s quite a beauty.”

Dean decides that he likes Edmond Tallier on the spot.

“Please, call me Edmond,” Tallier says once introductions are made. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you’ve come all this way.” He doesn’t sound as nervous as he did on the phone, Dean notes. “Anyone in Jocelyn’s family who could deal with this sort of thing has either left or passed away. I wouldn’t know what to do.”

“You found us,” Sam says, stepping forward. “We can handle it from here if you help us get started.”

Edmond nods. “Of course, whatever you need. That’s why I had you meet me here, at Jocelyn’s old house.”

“You don’t live here?” Dean asks, following Sam up the stairs when Edmond beckons them along. He leads them across the porch and through the front door. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean spies various carvings in the wood frame and along the baseboards. More protective sigils.

“I thought about moving in after Jocelyn’s death. I spent quite a lot of time here when I was growing up, you know. My mother died when I was very young and my father worked, leaving me here with his sister and Jocelyn.”

A piece of the puzzle slots into place. They hadn’t been able to figure out how Edmond related to Jocelyn Campbell. Her two brothers both had children, but they were all accounted for.

Sam asks what Dean is thinking. “Your aunt and Jocelyn were partners?”

Edmond nods. “As good as married, in my eyes. For more than fifty years, actually. My aunt—her name was Roberta, but she always went by Robbie—met Jocelyn in high school.”

Roberta Tallier passed away five years ago. Given the softness of Edmond’s voice, that pain has faded to fond memory in the intervening years. Jocelyn had been a part of his life from the beginning, welcoming her partner’s nephew into their home after his mother’s death.

As far back as he can remember, Jocelyn was always telling stories. As Edmond grew up, he came to realize that some of her tales were true. In reality, with no children of her own, she was entrusting him with an abridged version of the Campbell family history.

The house they’re standing in now served as the family estate. It was where they did their research, restocked their arsenal, and mourned their losses. They didn’t roam the country endlessly; they always had a place to which they could return. When Edmond was young, Jocelyn would lead him around the house, pointing out the protective markings and explaining their significance. Most of that, of course, fell into the deep chasm of childhood memory, never to resurface.

As he listens, Dean wonders what his life would look like if Dad kept them in one place. If they had a base like this, a home to usher them through their formative years. Would they have gone to the same school for more than a year? Made friends? Been normal?

Then again, _normal_ has never been Dean’s favorite word. If the Winchesters had never made the back roads their home, hunting in the dark and existing in the shadows, there’s a good chance Dean and Sam wouldn’t have grown up the way they did. Grown close they way they had. And Dean wouldn’t trade his experiences with Sam for anything.

Maybe that life wouldn’t have been so ideal after all. Not for the Winchesters, anyway.

Their host offers Sam and Dean each a glass of iced lemonade and invites them to sit at the kitchen table.

“Regrettably I had to sell quite a bit of the furniture to cover final expenses,” Edmond tells them in a somber tone, the corners of his mouth turning down. Dean noticed that the table and chairs were some of the few pieces that remained, at least from what he’s seen so far. “The larger pieces fetched a high enough price at auction that I didn’t have to go much further. My aunt had exquisite taste.”

The recollection has Edmond smiling again. “The rest I put away as best I could in case I decided to sell the property at some point.”

Sam gets right to business. “If Jocelyn asked you to keep an eye on Nine Oaks, she must’ve had some idea what was going on there. Did she have any notes or journals?”

“Many,” Edmond says after a moment’s consideration. “Most are in the study upstairs. She used it as a library of sorts, as well. I moved some of her things in the process of trying to see what’s here. Some of Jocelyn’s possessions were willed away to other families. Nothing I could do about that, you understand. Various trunks and lockboxes.” Edmond shudders. “I’m certain I never want to know their contents.”

Dean leans forward, elbows on the table. “What exactly did she tell you about Nine Oaks?”

“She insisted the plantation was haunted,” Edmond tells them. “The house, specifically. Most of the land got sold off before I was born. As much as Jocelyn liked to tell stories, she never went into detail about what was haunting the property. Not to me, anyway. That’s if she even knew. You might have more luck with her things. I imagine a lot of it would be indecipherable to me.”

Sam will be all over those as soon as he gets the chance, Dean thinks.

“I do know that, because of her family’s history, Jocelyn had considerable influence in the area.” Edmond’s cheeks flush with pride. If not a Campbell in name, he certainly considered them family. “Her father somehow kept the Nine Oaks manor from being sold or leased to anyone for years. Then her uncle did the same thing. After he passed away, Jocelyn made sure it stayed that way.”

He sighs, finally showing a hint of his age as his shoulders slump. “That all changed when she died. There were no more Campbells to block the sale.”

“Who owns it now?” Sam says, hazel eyes sharp. 

“Some investment group,” Edmond says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I have the name somewhere, but they’ve done little more than renovate the main house, turning the place around and renting it out as quickly as they could.”

“Do you know who rented it?”

“A doctor and his wife,” Edmond says. “A good friend of mine was hired to landscape the place, and he got real friendly with the agent who showed the place and wrote the lease.” There’s a twinkle in the Southerner’s eyes. “The doctor’s name is Max Benbow.”

Sam quickly types the information into his phone for later research.

Edmond’s hesitance resurfaces when Dean asks him about the ghost.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forget,” he says shakily, fingers fiddling with his pale green necktie. “I thought that since I couldn’t prevent anyone from living in the house, I needed to keep a closer eye on it.”

According to Tallier, he’s been driving past the property for months, several times a week. As time went on and he saw nothing out of the ordinary, he thought perhaps Jocelyn was wrong, that whatever haunted Nine Oaks had moved on or been laid to rest.

Edmond shakes his head slowly. “Jocelyn was rarely mistaken.”

On the night in question, he knew something was wrong the moment he approached the oak-lined drive which led to the main house.

“My heart seized in my chest. I remember the night was warm, but suddenly I was freezing. That’s when I recalled Jocelyn’s stories.” He sighs. “Now they seem more like lessons she was trying to pass on, just in case.”

“Keeping her family’s legacy alive,” Sam offers.

The word legacy strikes a strange chord within Dean. He’s more than aware that there won’t be anyone left to survive them, to carry on the Winchester name. So many have died for their cause. Perhaps they’ve done enough, however, saved enough people, to be remembered when they’re both gone. Maybe that’s the only legacy that really matters.

Dean steers the conversation back on track. “Where was the ghost?”

“At the edge of the drive, closer to the house. I thought it was a trick of the moon at first, maybe a statue caught in the light. Deep down I knew, though. It was something that didn’t belong.”

“Did it do anything?” Dean asks.

“I couldn’t move,” Edmond confesses. “I’d stopped my car at the drive, helpless to do anything but watch. It didn’t…” Here he struggles for words, as if the memory is strong enough to cause a physical response. “I don’t think it moved. It just...looked at the house. Like it was waiting?”

Brown eyes brimming with confusion meet Sam and Dean’s across the table.

“It sounds worse now that I’m saying it out loud. I wish I could tell you more.”

“Trust me,” Dean assures him, “it’s more than we usually get.”

Edmond listens closely while Sam explains what he’s learned since they received his message. It’s not much, but it’s enough for the Southerner to lean back in his chair, impressed. When he asks about the Men of Letters, Dean fills him in on the basics.

“I had no idea I’d be summoning experts,” Edmond says, a grin splitting his dark lips. “Come to think on it, y’all remind me a bit of Jocelyn. She was smart and confident, too.”

Dean sees Sam blush, ducking his own head at the compliment. Judging by how much Edmond loved and respected his aunt, it’s a big one.

“You’re welcome to use anything you find here,” Edmond offers, effectively wrapping up the discussion for now. “So many of my aunt’s things...I just don’t know what to do with them.”

“We’ll check her study,” Sam says. Though his voice is even, Dean can tell he’s jumping at the chance to read the Campbell family journals. “Do you mind if we take a few things with us for research?”

Edmond shakes his head. “No need to take them. You boys are welcome to stay here.”

Dean and Sam trade looks, skeptical meeting hopeful. There was a motel a few miles back on Savannah Highway that looked outdated and a little rundown. Nothing the Winchesters couldn’t handle. It reminded Dean of the motor court he and Sam called home for a summer all those years ago.

Sam speaks up tentatively. “Why would you let us do that? We’re basically strangers.”

“Strangers who came a long way to help when you could’ve ignored my message. This is just good Southern hospitality.” Tallier stands and rolls his shoulders. “Besides, I don’t think Jocelyn would mind. You’re cut from the same cloth. She would’ve liked the two of you.”

Dean shuts the lid of the cooler with his foot. Stepping onto the front porch of Jocelyn Campbell’s house, he hands Sam one of the beer bottles, a local microbrew he couldn’t resist splurging on, and sits down beside him. Not that Sam left him much space between his own books and what he’s brought down from the hunter’s study.

“Break time, Sammy. You’ve been going at those old journals for hours.”

“It’s incredible,” Sam tells him, handing Dean a well-cared for journal bound in soft leather. “This one belonged to Thomas Campbell, Jocelyn’s father.”

“The one who died young? Probably killed by a werewolf?”

Sam nods and sets his bottle aside, unopened. “Still, he started hunting when he was barely a teenager. Saw a lot before he died.”

Unfortunately, that two-sentence obituary could be applied to many of the hunters the Winchesters have known.

Dean pops the cap on his own beer and takes a long swig. Sam stares, a furrow forming between his eyebrows. He silently dares his brother to say something.

“Anything in there on Nine Oaks?”

“Not yet,” Sam says. “But I’m still looking. There’s so much to go through.”

He’s been looking since Tallier left them at his aunt’s home, dropping a set of keys on the table before he said goodbye. Sam has his phone number, and Edmond insisted they not hesitate to call.

“Don’t know how I’d be able to help,” Edmond said on his way out, “but I’m willing to try if it puts this thing to rest.”

While Sam began searching through Jocelyn’s study, Dean unloaded the Impala. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of staying in a dead woman’s house, but Sam’s in his element and it’s better than squatting in a condemned building or an empty foreclosure without power or water, both of which Edmond kept turned on even after canceling the other utilities. No credit card fraud either—another plus.

In the study, Sam found the old rotary phone Edmond had mentioned using. He yelled down to Dean, and together they dialed the code Edmond left, standing side by side as they listened to the odd, electronic static followed by the monotone command.

“He wasn’t kidding,” Sam said after Dean replaced the teal phone in its cradle. “I wonder how many hunters had codes like that. I’m surprised we haven’t heard other messages like Edmond’s.”

Dean hummed, considering, before he shook his head. “If no one picks up the phone, eventually you stop trying.”

Sam met Dean’s gaze and frowned.

After that, Dean headed out for supplies, hitting a convenience store ten minutes up the road towards Charleston. By the time he made it back to the house, the sun was setting, casting the whole place in a warm, golden glow.

He pulled the Impala around and saw Sam sitting up on the raised porch, the same glow softening his edges as he read from the journal on his lap. Dean carried in the bags, loaded the cooler with ice and drinks, before joining him.

“There’s a table inside,” Dean says. “Couch, too. You don’t have to sit on the porch.”

“Piazza.”

Dean frowns. “Gesundheit?”

“That’s what it’s called down here,” Sam mutters. “It’s a piazza, not a porch.”

“Whatever, Southern Living.”

Sam’s shoulders shake as he tries to conceal his laugh. Dean grins and takes another swig.

The setting sun works her magic in this golden hour. In Dean’s eyes, the warm light seems to erase some of the trials from Sam’s face, softening the lines from all he’s endured. Here, it’s as if the aura of those who came before them is somehow able to ease the weight from Sam’s shoulders, making him more at ease.

It’s good to see him smile. The sight reminds Dean that he wasn’t the only one left reeling after they got rid of the Darkness. Though most of Sam’s wounds were physical in nature, her attacks inscribed on his skin, he also carried the burden of Dean’s incapacitation. Sam did this massive thing for him, for _them_ , and Dean thought that by remaining in the bunker, shielding them both from whatever would come for them next, he was giving Sam time to heal, too. At the very least, it was time Dean could use to figure out a way to thank him, to apologize for what the Darkness put him through.

Watching Sam as the sun goes down, Dean feels _something_ spark deep within the void. He feels the heat but doesn’t dare touch, afraid it will flicker out into nothing.

A sharp twinge in the middle of Dean’s back reminds him that sitting on the wooden steps isn’t ideal. Groaning, he stands and stretches until most of the aches have faded to a dull throb. Easy to ignore. Other pains, like the tightness in his right hip and the creak in his elbow, will never go away.

“You’re wasting good beer,” Dean says, picking up Sam’s bottle while trying not to dissect the way Sam’s staring up at him. Careful, considering. Too much in his eyes for Dean to work out.

He drops the beer back in the cooler, fingers going numb as he searches for a certain plastic bottle beneath the ice. Several cold drops fall on Sam’s jeans before he notices Dean holding the bottle over his shoulder.

“Sweet tea?” Sam looks perplexed for a second before his expression clears. “I can’t believe you remembered that.”

Dean shrugs and hands Sam the bottle. “Hard not to. You drank gallons of the stuff.”

“The woman who ran the motel, she used to bring it to me.”

Dean may not remember the woman, but he remembers what Sam’s lips tasted like after he finished a glass. Cool and sweet, a hint of tart citrus from the squeezed lemon. Dean loved to chase that taste around Sam’s pliant mouth. When Sam finished drinking, Dean would drag an ice cube over his lips, down his shoulders to soothe Sam’s mild sunburn.

When Dean saw the bottles of brewed sweet tea in the mini-mart, he couldn’t help but revisit those memories. Now he has to shake them off before he gets too distracted.

“You want to hit up Nine Oaks tonight?” Dean asks. “Get ourselves a look at this ghost?”

“Might as well.” Sam’s gaze sweeps over his collection of notes and lore. “We need something more to go on if any of this stuff is gonna be useful.”

The jarring crunch of car tires on gravel hurts Sayuri’s ears. Max wastes no time pulling out, turning down the main drive on his way downtown. The hospital needs him to rub elbows at a fundraiser, so instead of a rare family dinner, Sayuri is left alone, encouraged to ‘take time for herself.’

Time to herself. The one thing Max and Anna insist on giving her; the one thing of which she sees too much.

She thought she might spend time with the baby, but Anna scooped her up as soon as Max got off the phone, ready with a sweet smile and and even more sugary excuse as to why Sayuri shouldn’t worry herself. The words are a thin veil over the truth.

Her own baby cries when she’s close. The noise gives Sayuri a headache that doesn’t abate for hours. She used to find it comforting to hold her, to inhale that soft, powder scent. Now, her baby squirms to get away from her, reaching for Anna. When that happens, Sayuri feels like she could scream and cry all at once.

With nothing else, Sayuri returns to her office. Ironic how this is the only room in which her moods feel less suffocating.

If it weren’t for the wallpaper, she might enjoy it.

Even as she stares at her computer screen, the dizzying design presses in from all sides, sickening saffron swirls that appear more chaotic the closer she looks. She tries to focus on the things she used to love, things she’s supposed to love, but when she’s in this room, her mind stops being her own.

And yet she keeps coming back.

Up here, hours tick by without Sayuri noticing. Max once found her kneeling on the floor, fingers outstretched. She thought she’d seen a pair of glowing eyes watching her, and she felt compelled to find them again. Always hidden, though.

She ought to be familiar with every thorn and wilted flower within the yellow maze, yet not a day goes by that she doesn’t find new patterns that make her stomach turn. Thick branches with joints like human limbs, naked and sallow. Tangled vines like hair caught in the briars.

It’s more alarming at night. The patterns change, the vines grow teeth. Snapping at her when she walks by. The moonlight creates new shadows, the amber thicket appears deeper. Sayuri swears she can see it move, but she can’t feel so much as a breeze in the musty room.

The deep rumble of an unusual engine breaks into her subconscious. She blinks and finds herself standing away from her desk, close enough to the balcony to feel the muggy air sticking to her skin. She catches a brief flash of low headlights breaking through the line of trees at the end of the main drive as the noisy car passes the house.

She misses regular sounds. City streets, neighbors, dogs. Nine Oaks is too quiet. Sayuri doesn’t like to hear the sound of her own heart beating; it’s louder than she can bear. At times it feels like the walls are closing in, the air thicker as it pushes against her chest. The silence is equally heavy, her shoulders ache whenever she tries to sleep.

The lights disappear and Sayuri is alone again. If she doesn’t at least try to work, produce something to show for the hours she wiles away up in this room, Max will try something else to bring her around. To help her adjust.

She sits back down at her desk, taking one last look at the section of wallpaper to which she’d been unconsciously drawn. There the pattern appears deeper, more complex. Like a whirlpool drawing her down.

Or perhaps she’s being fanciful again. That’s what Max would tell her.

Blocking out the wallpaper as much as possible, Sayuri musters enough energy to begin typing.


	4. Chapter 4

The first night of surveillance leads nowhere.

Dean drives past Nine Oaks several times, eyes open for anything out of the ordinary. The place looks like something out of an old movie, a wide avenue of towering oak trees leading from the main road up to the sweeping, two-storey white manor. It feels old, as if history is pressing out from the heart of the plantation, trying to keep them away.

Nine Oaks is clinging to its fair share of dark secrets.

He parks well out of sight of the house, the Impala’s chrome shielded from the moonlight behind a line of trees, as he listens to Sam go over what he knows about the property and the current tenants.

“Max Benbow was hired a few months ago by one of the big hospitals downtown,” Sam tells him. Dean leans across the front seat to see the picture Sam brings up on his phone, studying the official staff headshot of a white man with thick, reddish brown hair, wearing a white lab coat. “He’s married to a woman named Sayuri, but I haven’t found much on her yet.”

“Not really your typical rental,” Dean muses, staring out the windshield. An old plantation house well outside Charleston city limits doesn’t seem like it would make the list for many people relocating to the area. “Kind of out in the middle of nowhere.”

Sam smirks. “I guess some people are willing to ignore a century and a half of history that includes slavery, murder, and ghosts.”

Dean shrugs. “They probably thought it was charming.”

Three a.m. comes and goes without a sighting, and Dean drives them back to the house, half asleep as he and Sam work out where to crash. Through a yawn, Dean offers to take the couch. Sam scowls at the idea.

“C’mon, Dean. There are bedrooms Edmond said we can use.”

Sam chooses the room beside Jocelyn’s study, leaving Dean the one across the hall. They stand opposite one another, shoulders sagging after a never-ending day that began on the side of a highway.

Sam hesitates with his hand on the doorknob, and Dean pauses, waiting out whatever he’s trying to say.

“I’m glad we came.”

“We haven’t found anything so far,” Dean reminds him in a low voice.

“I know you would’ve rather stayed at the bunker, not taken on two hunts back to back.”

That brings a frown to Dean’s face. “I can handle it, Sam.”

“I’m not saying you can’t, Dean. I meant that it feels like we’re getting back to normal.” He sighs. “For a while, it kinda felt like we’d never get back to this.”

Dean knows what Sam isn’t saying. That there was a time when Sam thought he wouldn’t get Dean back.

“Let’s save this talk for tomorrow, alright?” Sam knows this is his way of saying let’s never talk about this again. He soaks in the sight of Sam’s sleepy half-smile just before he turns and steps into the bedroom.

When they moved into the bunker, it took Dean weeks to get used to the idea of not sleeping in the same room as his brother. For years on the road, he’d built his routine around Sam. Working out the sleeping arrangements, sharing the cramped bathroom, knowing Sam would spread his crap out all over the table, the desk, the dresser—any solid, flat surface.

Eventually he did. It turned out that getting used to sleeping alone, but knowing Sam was close, was easier than trying to rest when Sam was thousands of miles away at Stanford, living his own life.

Dean had never gotten used to that.

He forgoes his headphones and lets the sounds of the Lowcountry night lull him to sleep through the half-open window. Gossiping crickets, mournful marsh birds, and the melodic croak of tree frogs make for an unusual soundtrack, but Dean doesn’t mind. He falls asleep moments after his mind catches on the idea that the void within him doesn’t feel as sharp tonight. As if the serrated edges have been worn down, no longer as deadly.

Sam wakes up in the morning with a plan.

“Let’s go talk to the agent who rented Nine Oaks to the Benbows,” he suggests as soon as Dean stumbles into the kitchen, still yawning. “Edmond gave me her name, so I called and made an appointment at her office downtown.”

A clunky black coffee maker that’s seen better days is chugging along on the kitchen counter. The smell alone wakes Dean’s senses enough for him to follow along.

“How are we playing it?” he asks, impatiently waiting for Sam to finish pouring the coffee. “IRS agents looking into the property? Students writing about local history?”

“Dean, no one would ever believe that we’re students anymore.”

“Hey,” Dean teases, “don’t knock continuing education programs. So what, then? Do I need my Fed suit?”

Sam shakes his head. The way the corner of his mouth twitches makes Dean nervous. 

“I have another idea.”

Georgia Snipes welcomes the Winchesters into her office with a smile. Her straight, dark hair is just beginning to go gray at her temples, faint wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth. Her makeup is nearly flawless, and in place of a suit she wears a bright knee-length dress that brings out her green eyes. Dean knows he’s looking at a strong, successful Southern woman, complete with white pearls around her neck.

Sam insisted they dress it down for this particular meeting. He grumbled something about ‘options’ as he went through Dean’s bag, pulling a pair of slacks and Dean’s nicest collared shirt, pale blue, and insisting he wear it with an open-collar. Sam came downstairs wearing a crisp, blush pink shirt, unbuttoned at his throat, that Dean swore he’d never seen before. He would know; he does most of Sam’s laundry.

“Did you _buy_ that shirt in the last five minutes?” Dean accused. What he didn’t add was how well the shirt fit his brother, and how the color brought out the pink in his cheeks.

Turned out Sam's plan was to take advantage of the fact that strangers often assume they're a couple. An odd scenario considering it was the truth once, long ago. Dean tried to leave it in the past, but he's lost count of the number of times the line has blurred. Sometimes it's after a strenuous hunt or a life-threatening fight, maybe after too many beers and not enough personal space. Dean’s desires rise and fall like a wave. Sometimes he can bear it, other times he wonders what's stopping him from kissing Sam. 

“You mentioned the Nine Oaks property when you called this morning,” Ms. Snipes says after introductions are made and her assistant has gone to fetch two cups of coffee. “What exactly is your interest in the plantation?”

Sam fields her question. “We’ve been coming down to Charleston for years.” His tone is different, more easy going and relatable than the one he uses for his various government aliases. “I kind of fell in love with the place. We’ve always wanted a big, Southern manor,” Sam says, looking fondly at Dean in a way the agent can’t mistake for platonic. Obviously, Sam doesn't mind pretending. “Every time I looked into the property, it wasn’t available to buy or rent. Now we’re down for a long weekend, and when we drove by the plantation just to see it, I couldn’t help noticing that someone was living in the house.”

The ruse is impressive. Sam knows exactly how to shape his responses to lead the agent in the direction he wants. Specific enough to show Ms. Snipes that he’s not wasting her time, but vague enough to let her fill in the blanks without hesitation.

“That’s a fairly recent development,” Ms. Snipes informs them. She spins in her chair and pulls a black binder from the mahogany shelf behind her. “Until recently the property was held in some sort of trust—I’m a little unclear on the details. It prevented the plantation from being sold, or even rented.”

They need more. Dean presses. “Sounds like an odd arrangement.”

“It was stipulated in the will of the previous owner,” she says, scanning the paperwork in front of her. “Instead of leaving the property to family, he stated that Nine Oaks was not to be occupied until certain conditions were met.”

Dean glances sideways at Sam. He has a pretty good idea what those conditions were. Jocelyn’s death left no Campbells in the area, setting the property, and whatever’s haunting Nine Oaks, free.

Ms. Snipes grins, setting the binder to the side. “Lucky for us, that changed earlier this year. A local group of investors that I deal with purchased the plantation.”

Sam feigns disappointment. “Looks like we’re too late, then.”

“Oh don’t worry, it’s only been rented temporarily. The current tenants are building a new home in the area.”

“Were any changes made to the land or the house itself?” Dean asks, eager to know what might have caused a dormant spirit to reemerge. The agent’s eyes narrow, forcing Dean to cover his remarks. “It’s just that Sam here”—he places his hand on Sam’s knee—“is all about those original details. He’d hate to hear that the manor had been gutted and renovated, or that some of the old trees were dug up to put in a pool.”

Sam plays along. “It’s just so beautiful already.”

Ms. Snipes relaxes. “You boys don’t have to worry about that. The main house was brought up to code, of course. New wiring and outlets, some changes to the plumbing. Ductless air conditioning units added to several rooms.”

“Would the tenants be allowed to change anything?”

“I gave them explicit instructions not to,” Ms. Snipes swears with a hand over her heart. “Besides, with the husband being a doctor and them having a new baby, I doubt they’re the type of people to throw themselves into major projects. Actually, now that you mention it…”

She rifles through a small pile of notes stacked beneath her cell phone. “The husband did call asking about a few minor cosmetic changes. Apparently his wife was unhappy with some things. But don’t worry, I’ll call him back and tell him that changes aren’t permitted under their lease. Especially if the next tenants, or should I say _owners_ —” she winks at the Winchesters—“want the manor left in its original condition.”

“That would be amazing,” Sam says, false smile full of teeth. “Thank you, Ms. Snipes.”

“Oh, please, call me Georgia,” she drawls, smooth as honey. Clearly she’s sniffing out a massive future commission. “And you boys just feel free to call me if you have any more questions.”

Nine Oaks feels different as soon as Dean and Sam pull up in the Impala later that night. The air is just as muggy as it was the evening before, yet somehow feels heavier. Like the property has doubled its efforts to keep them out.

Dean forces himself to take deep breaths. The strong scent of fresh, tangy moss floats in through the open car windows, the green notes mixed with something sharper. A scent they recognize easily.

“Ozone,” Sam mutters. “I think we’re in luck.”

“Only you would call this lucky,” Dean says, staring into the darkness, trying to pick out the lights of the manor through the line of trees. “We’re gonna have to go in on foot.”

It’s too hot for layers, so Dean ditches his jacket in the backseat after they park the Impala behind a twisting grove of trees out of sight of the main house. Sam is already down to his navy blue t-shirt, sweat around the ring of his collar, attracting Dean’s stare a moment too long. 

“Something wrong?” Sam asks. He looks down and groans. “I forgot how humid it can get down here. At least we had the beach last time.”

Dean remembers the crescent beach, palmetto trees shading them from the strongest of the sun’s rays, and gray-blue water that Sam couldn’t resist. Unlike Sam, Dean didn’t hit the beach to cool down. He went there to find Sam, usually ending up with a lapful of chilled skin and searching lips, although the memories themselves are suffused with heat.

They circle the property, getting closer and closer to the house on every pass. It’s quiet out here, no noise from the road and no neighbors for at least a mile on either side. He shakes his head when Sam suggests splitting up and searching in opposite directions. They have no idea what’s out there, and if something happens, Dean doesn’t want Sam out of his sight.

A few steps ahead, Sam has stopped dead in his tracks. Dean watches him turn and exhale, breath passing his lips in a burst of white fog. Dean shivers.

Sam’s voice is barely a whisper when he says, “It’s gotta be close.”

Dean raises his gun and steps forward, matching Sam’s pace as his brother moves carefully, salt-filled rifle in his hands. It gets steadily colder, and Dean suddenly regrets leaving his jacket in the Impala.

Sam’s hand shoots out, stopping Dean in his tracks. Using the rifle, he points through the trees ahead of them.

The ghost is indeed a woman. She stands just off the main drive, her back to the Winchesters. She's entirely focused on the house and nothing else, not even the approach of two armed hunters.

Dean doesn’t remember ever being able to sneak up on a ghost.

With one look at Sam, they decide to watch and wait.

The woman's face is turned away, but Dean notes long, dark hair curling down past her shoulders. What skin he can see at her wrists is pale, almost snow-white. Her clothing is distinctive, certainly nothing from the last fifty or one hundred years. The dress is a creamy white, but the fabric around her waist is darker, matching the bottom of her dress. Full sleeves, delicate embroidery, a high collar. Dean’s read his fair share of history books—he’d place her clothing around the pre-World War I era—but Sam would know more. At the very least it gives them a time frame in which to focus their research.

“What’s she doing?” Dean whispers. The pale woman hasn’t moved. She stares up at the house, never moving. “The history on this place is pretty damn bloody, man. It doesn’t make sense for her to just stand there.”

“Can you see the house?” Sam asks, leaning to the side.

Doing so requires Dean to move. A few seconds later he’s able to peek through the trees and see the manor for himself. A few lights shine in the windows on the lower level, but what catches Dean’s eye is the large balcony that sits front and center above the wrap-around porch. Piazza. _Whatever_.

The doors to the balcony are wide open. Dean can’t see much from where he’s crouched, just the barest glimpse of a yellow room along with a shadow moving back and forth in front of the light. If he had to guess, he’d say their ghost is watching that room, her focus unwavering.

He looks back at Sam. His brother has his phone out, silently snapping pictures of the ghost. Dean pulls out his cell and does the same for the house before making his way back to Sam’s side.

“I don’t get it.”

“Maybe she’s like this at first,” Sam suggests. “Then she gets angrier and more violent the longer someone remains in the house.”

It’s a strong possibility, definitely a scenario they’ve worked with before. Still, something seems off. He’s about to say that to Sam when a rush of hot air sweeps over them, too warm to be a natural breeze. Spanish moss swings back and forth like a pendulum over their heads, goosebumps breaking out on their bare arms.

Strangest of all, the ghost covers her face with her pale fingers like she’s trying to shield herself. She looks up at the house one last time, gaze going straight to the yellow room, and disappears.

Dean’s mind is stuck in overdrive all the way back to the house.

Sam keeps flicking his thumb against his teeth, an old nervous habit. He doesn’t have to say anything. There’s no question: this hunt is more complicated than they thought.

He follows Sam up the steps and into Jocelyn Campbell’s house, dropping the duffle bag on the floor by the kitchen. Normally he’d recheck the weapons as soon as they got back, but they hadn’t fired a single shot.

“What the hell is going on here, Sam?”

His brother braces himself on the counter, his muscles tense and his shoulders forming a rigid line across his back. Dean’s caught up in the sight of thick biceps disappearing under the sleeves of Sam’s t-shirt, still stained with sweat, and wide palms spread flat on the countertop.

Dean has always loved his brother’s hands. Even back when Sam was twelve, before his teenage growth spurts hit, Dean knew Sam’s hands would get bigger and bigger. Like a puppy growing into its paws. They’d lie on cheap motel sheets, or sit folded against one another in the backseat of the Impala while Dad hustled inside the bar, and compare the size of their hands. Palms pressed together, innocent touches that gradually grew into more. Year after year, Dean would measure Sam’s growth. 

By the time he left for Stanford, Sam’s hands could completely cover Dean’s.

“I don’t think I’ve felt anything like that wind before. It doesn’t make sense. Ghosts usually run cold,” Dean says, shaking his head to dispel the cottony wisps of memory. “Something else was causing it.”

“Did you see the way she reacted?” Sam asks, looking at Dean across the kitchen.

Dean returns to the scene while it’s still fresh and vivid in his mind. He sees the woman’s specter turn into the heated rush of wind, hands coming up. The look of pain and sadness on her face.

“She was trying to defend herself against it.”

Sam nods, his gaze turning distant as he, too, thinks back. Dean watches the emotions flicker across his face, his lips making the barest of movements as he speaks silently to himself, forming and rejecting ideas until he settles on one to say aloud.

“Did you notice the trees closer to the house?”

Dean scowls, trying to figure out where the question leads and ending up lost. “What about them?”

“They didn’t move,” Sam points out. “Neither did the balcony doors, and that was a pretty strong gust of wind.”

“You’re saying our ghost was _targeted_?” Dean asks.

Sam sighs, pushing a hank of hair away from his face. “You know as well as I do that there was nothing natural about that wind. We just happened to be hiding in the line of fire, so to speak.”

“Ghost on ghost violence?” Dean muses. “Now that’s something we’ve seen before.”

He recalls helping Bobby’s ghost and Annie Hawkins’ spirit take on the malicious ghost of Whitman Van Ness. Some people carry their evil into death, where it’s further twisted and warped until they hurt not only the living, but the dead, too. Could be what’s happening inside Nine Oaks.

Dean’s prepared for the melancholy that accompanies the memory of Bobby. Some losses never stop hurting.

“It could be one of her victims trying to prevent her from turning violent.”

“We have to find out who she was,” Sam says, unable to stop his yawn. “She’s the only clue we’ve got.”

Though they could both use a few hours to recharge their cells, it looks like sleep is going to have to wait. Sam’s already searching through the books he left open on the kitchen counter, shoving volumes aside that don’t contain whatever he’s looking for.

“Why don’t you hand me a few of those?” Dean offers, pretending to struggle when Sam pushes three extra-voluminous books in his direction. “Anything shorter? Maybe ones with pictures?”

Sam frowns. Dean knows to look for the slight quirk at the corner of his mouth. It’s nearly as good as catching a smile. His brother points towards the couch, and Dean complies. When it comes to research, Sam’s running the show tonight.

Dean wakes up slowly, grimacing when he shifts and feels a couch-spring digging into his ribs. When he finally opens his eyes, it's to the sight of Sam sitting at the counter with his laptop. Dean’s about to apologize for dozing off when they still haven’t figured out who the figure amongst the oaks could be, when he notices several things in quick succession.

First, the aroma of strong coffee. Second, the too-bright rays of sunlight slanting through plantation shutters, warming Dean’s feet from across the living room. Added to the fact that Sam’s wearing a different shirt than he was when Dean carried his portion of the research to the couch, Dean realizes he’s been asleep for way longer than he planned.

“What time s’it?”

“A little past ten,” Sam says without turning around. Whatever’s on the screen in front of him has him totally engaged. Dean is too far away to see the photos he’s scrolling through. Checking means _moving_ , and that’s a big ask for his aching body. Give him a minute. Or two.

When he finally rolls off the couch, scuffling bare-footed across the floor, he notices that there’s a cup of coffee beside Sam’s elbow. Dean looks for the carafe and finds it half empty.

“Dude.” He smacks Sam on the shoulder. “Did you even sleep?”

“I couldn’t,” Sam says. “But it was worth it, Dean. I hit the jackpot.”

That hits Dean like a shot of caffeine. Not a literal one, obviously. He still requires a cup of black coffee if what Sam’s about to tell him has any chance of sticking.

The jackpot turns out not to be a book or one of the Campbell’s journals. It’s not an article from ancient issues of the Charleston _Post & Courier_ or in any of the notes Sam packed and brought to South Carolina from the bunker.

“An Instagram account?” Dean scoffs. “Are you kidding me, Sammy?”

“I found Sayuri Benbow’s Instagram account,” Sam states proudly, taking a small sip of the coffee that’s probably kept him from collapsing on the counter if he’s been awake as long as Dean thinks he has.

“What’s so awesome about that?”

“She’s a lifestyle blogger.” Sam says it as if that’s a phrase Dean ought to be familiar with. “Meaning she posts all kinds of stuff from her daily life. Or, well, she used to. She stopped posting seven months ago, around the time she probably had her baby.”

Dean takes in every piece of information. At this point he’s positive Sam didn’t sleep a wink last night. 

“But when she moved into Nine Oaks, she started posting again. Not much, just a few photos here and there. Most of them are of the main house and the grounds immediately outside.”

With Dean leaning in from the side, personal space no longer even a consideration they afford one another, Sam scrolls through Sayuri’s Instagram page. From what Dean can tell, Instagram is just a fancy word for ‘photo wall.’ He sees Nine Oaks in the daylight, the old manor impressive against the lush green of the surrounding land. Somewhat artistic shots of the line of trees for which the plantation was named, their age apparent in the width and span of the branches. Another shot taken from the spot where Dean and Sam were crouched last night, the manor just barely visible through a screen of oak leaves and drooping moss.

There are photos of the interior, too. Sam scrolls and clicks, showing Dean a cropped shot of the wide, curving staircase taken from the foyer. At least their story to Georgia Snipes holds up—Sayuri Benbow has documented many of the manor’s unique details. Fireplaces, carved bannisters, original hardwood.

“Not really my style,” Dean quips, squinting at the next photo. He can’t tell if it’s his vision or a problem with whatever filter (Sam explained what Instagram _did_ ) Sayuri used, but the wallpaper she’s captured is hard to look at. “I mean, that’s some hideous stuff. I don’t care what the real estate agent told me, I’d rip that crap out right away.”

He stares at the yellow mess until Sam clicks on the next photo.

“I still don’t understand why you’re so excited,” Dean says, pushing away from Sam and finally getting his hands on some coffee. Lukewarm, but he’s a beggar, not a chooser. “It doesn’t tell us anything about the ghost. Hell, Sammy, we don’t even know if anything is happening in that damn house!”

Sam, frustratingly calm, withstands the brief tirade. “It tells us a lot about Sayuri.”

“Care to share?” Dean mutters against the rim of his mug. 

“I checked out her blog from before she moved down here. It wasn’t great stuff content-wise, but she seemed like a happy, well-adjusted person. She was pregnant and excited about it.” He spins his laptop around so that Dean can see the series of photos he’s talking about. “Lots of photos and blog entries about baby showers, gifts she received, all leading up to their move down to Charleston.”

Dean hustles Sam along to the point. “So?”

“So…” Again, Sam indicates the laptop. “No pictures of the baby after she was born. Not even a mention of her daughter except for the first photo she posted from Nine Oaks. _Choosing a room for the nursery is tough when there are so many to choose from._ After that, nothing. As far as the captions go, it’s the same thing as her blog,” he adds. “She went from writing a lot of upbeat stuff to barely managing to post a few words here and there. Not exactly inspiring stuff.”

He reads a few of the captions out loud, and he was right. Sayuri’s posts are low-key, morose. When Sam reads them in monotone, the effect is even more noticeable. The longer Sayuri lives in Nine Oaks, the stranger her posts become. The latest one, posted just a few days ago, is downright nonsensical. The photo it’s paired with is the same shot of obnoxious yellow wallpaper that Dean noticed before.

“Maybe she’s stressed. There’s a lot to raising a baby.” Dean has vague recollections of Sam being that small, Dad’s temper fraying as the demands of raising two young boys fell on him alone.

“There’s a nanny, though. Edmond told me.”

“When did you talk to Edmond?”

“He called me earlier, like, around eight-thirty this morning,” Sam says. “Wanted to see if we’d found anything. I told him about the ghost we saw, trying to figure out if he knew anything else that could help us.”

Dean rests his forehead against his palm, working out the puzzle in his mind. “So why is Sayuri so depressed? Moving halfway across the country, maybe? Losing interest in her work?” He sighs. “This might not be our kind of thing at all, Sam.”

Sam’s quick to refute that. “If Nine Oaks didn’t have such a violent history, and if you and I hadn’t seen the ghost last night, I might agree with you. Put it all together, and there could be a connection here.”

Closing his laptop, Sam takes a deep breath. No amount of coffee can hide the fact that he’s exhausted. Dean’s about to suggest that he crash for an hour or two on the couch to deal with the shadows beneath his eyes, but Sam speaks before he can open his mouth.

“We need to go talk to Sayuri, figure out how she fits into all this.”

“I got this.” Dean jumps in before Sam can object. “Only one of us needs to go, anyway. You can stay here, keep working on the ghost. Reach out to Edmond again if you need to.” 

He stops short of ordering Sam to take a nap. No matter the circumstances, Dean has to make sure Sam is taken care of. It's hard-coded into his DNA. Whether Sam is sick, tired, or hurt, Dean sees it as a problem he needs to fix. Even if he's also sick, tired, or hurting twice as bad.

Even with a hole the size of Texas in his soul, Sam comes first.

Nine Oaks appears even more dramatic in the daylight. The manor is large and overdone, excessive in any era. Dean can’t see the charm. He appreciates places that are old, well-loved, but that’s not what Nine Oaks is. The scars are there for all to see.

Even with Sam’s guided tour through Sayuri Benbow’s online life, Dean has no idea what to expect when he steps up onto the wide veranda and knocks on the front door. It’s definitely not the smiling black coed who answers the door with a baby on her hip.

“Can I help you?” she asks, brown eyes looking Dean up and down while the baby girl coos. He’s wearing the same clothes from his meeting with Georgia Snipes. According to Sam he looks much less threatening this way. Approachable. That was the word Sam used.

Dean flashes his most disarming smile. “Hi, I was hoping to speak to the Benbows. Is that you?”

The young woman, in a crimson University of South Carolina t-shirt, shakes her head. “Nope, I’m Anna. I just help with little Lourdes here.”

“I was talking to the agent who rented this house to the Benbows. My partner and I are interested in the place once they move out.” He sticks to Sam’s ruse in case this meeting gets back to Georgia Snipes. “There’s a lot I’m curious about. Do you know much about the plantation?”

“When I’m not with Lourdes, I’m on the computer taking my online courses,” Anna explains, all too trusting. “Max is at work but Sayuri is upstairs, I think. She definitely knows more about the house than I do. Hang on, I’ll see if she’s busy.”

Dean politely waits outside the front door while the nanny goes to find her employer. His eyes inevitably drift towards the shaded spot where the ghost appeared. Nothing there now, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling uneasy.

A few minutes later he hears soft footsteps approaching the door. Then silence as whoever it is hesitates on the other side. He’s relieved when the door finally opens and reveals a thin, black-haired woman, her hazel eyes blinking at Dean from behind teal-framed glasses.

Sayuri Benbow stands behind the half-open door, obscuring Dean’s view of the foyer. Her blouse is tailored, the color of rose quartz, worn over dark jeans that fit tightly around her narrow legs. Dean half-expected her to be holding Lourdes in her arms. The baby must be with Anna.

Tracks with Sam’s theories.

“Mrs. Benbow, I presume?” Dean sticks with the charm. “I was just talking to Anna about the house.”

Sayuri doesn’t pretend to be interested. Dean recognizes suspicion in her tightly drawn features. 

“Yes, and?”

Smile in place, Dean explains, “My partner and I met with Georgia Snipes, your leasing agent? We’re interested in Nine Oaks.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” Sayuri says, trying to withdraw. Dean stops her with a hand on the door, but he keeps his tone and expression gentle.

“Please, ma’am. This would mean so much to my partner and I,” Dean pleads. His heart gives a little twirl whenever he calls Sam _his partner_. “It’d be great if I could see some of the original architecture, take some photos for him. I promise it won’t take long. I can stay out of your way if you're busy?”

“No, I—I’ll show you around.” As if the idea of letting Dean wander on his own is more unthinkable than accompanying him. “Come in.”

Sayuri hovers by the grand staircase, a good ten feet separating her from Dean. She doesn’t launch into detail about the house; she waits for Dean to ask the questions, which proves difficult as he’s not as familiar with the place as Sam.

“Mrs. Snipes mentioned you wanted to make some changes to the place,” he tries, hoping that an old house means big problems about which to vent. 

“The house is fine,” Sayuri tells him flatly, barely blinking. Dean has to stop himself from snapping his fingers in front of her face. “She shouldn’t have told you that.”

“No major problems, then?” He keeps up the friendliness, trying to come off as harmless. “We’re used to fixer-uppers, but we want to know if we’ll be getting in over our heads, here.”

Sayuri hesitates before each response, Dean refusing to give up until they're no longer stalled in the main foyer. He talks his way through the front parlor—now a home office for her husband—and the formal dining room where Dean pretends to know the origins of the massive oak table which dominates the room, undoubtedly a piece that came with the manor. 

Finally Sayuri gives in to Dean’s prompting and allows him upstairs. He needs to see the room with the balcony, the one their ghost couldn’t take her eyes off of the night before. 

As soon as he sets foot on the upper landing, the E.M.F. reader in his back pocket—a slimmed down, homemade model no. 5—begins to vibrate. Sam suggested the modification when Dean was building this reader, and Dean is grateful for it as Sayuri doesn't notice a thing.

The vibrations get stronger as Dean approaches the first room with Sayuri reluctantly trailing. He takes one look inside and stops dead.

He recognizes the wallpaper immediately. He thought that perhaps Sayuri purposefully altered her photos on Instagram to make the yellow paper look more monstrous. In person, it's worse. Sayuri, with more emotion in her voice than he's heard all afternoon, tries to lead Dean away from the room, but he's caught up in the sight. The wallpaper tarnishes the sunlight pouring in from the balcony until it matches the turbulent yellow of the sky just before a tornado, and the draw is just as strong.

Helpless, as if hooked and pulled, Dean steps into the room. Sayuri is still speaking, her tone barely reaching Dean’s senses. He tries so say something to her, a question perhaps, but he can't hear the words leaving his lips. It's too warm in the room; Dean can feel sweat running down his spine, gathering on his upper lip.

His mind loses focus. Strange static drowns every other sound, muffled voices pressing against Dean’s ears, unable to make out one over the others. He turns, assaulted by the abstract amber mess no matter which way he looks. Something is _there_ , watching him. He would swear it appears darkly pleased with his suffering.

Finally, one voice resolves itself, and Dean strains to hear, stomach heaving when he recognizes his own voice.

_You’re going to die_ , it hisses. _You think there’s hope, but the emptiness in your soul is going to kill you._

Dean winces, physically revolted but unable to muster the strength to raise his hands to cover his ears.

_You want it to be Sam, but baby brother is going to walk away, just like he’s done before. Your love isn’t enough, not for Sam, not for anyone. You’re worthless. Worn down, used up. Empty like the pit in your soul. She ruined you, Dean._

It attacks with emotions Dean has long thought salted, burned, and buried deep. To his horror, the voice gets louder, consuming him. Screaming that he’ll never be good enough for Sam, that he’s better off dying so that Sam can get on with his life. Every negative thought he’s had over the last fifteen years is being ripped out of him and brought to rot in the open.

_He doesn’t want you anymore. Not after everything you’ve done. He's better off without you. Do yourself a favor, Dean. Pull out that fancy gun and use it._

That’s when Dean’s phone rings. Dazed, he reaches for his phone without thinking, barely noticing the E.M.F. reader continuing to vibrate in his other pocket. In the background, he can vaguely hear Sayuri ask him a question. He raises his phone to his ear.

“I need you.” Like a hammer, Sam’s voice breaks through the spell Dean’s under.

“Sammy?”

“...Dean? You okay?” 

He doesn’t know how to respond, just so relieved to hear Sam’s voice after what this place has made him feel. Sayuri is staring at him, her face drained of what little color it possessed. When he drops his gaze, he sees her wringing her hands together. Can’t really blame the woman for being spooked.

“What the hell’s going on, Dean? Talk to me.”

“It’s fine, Sam,” Dean manages to say, his voice shaky. “I’m at Nine Oaks with the owner. What’d you need?”

“I need you to get back to Jocelyn’s,” Sam rushes to say. There’s so much noise at his end of the call, the low buzz of other conversations, the rapid beat of traffic passing by, the screech of gulls overhead. Sam must’ve gone out chasing a lead. “I think I know who our ghost is.”

Sayuri creeps to the edge of the balcony and watches Dean Winchester drive away in a long, black classic car. The kind of car men spend thousands of dollars refurbishing in their spare time.

Her skin hasn’t stopped crawling since the man stepped into her study before she could stop him. Something told her to scream, push him out. She felt hands at her back pressing her to do just that. Sayuri was too scared, though, rooted to the floor as the man stood in the center of the room, unmoving, as if he'd slipped into a trance.

He snapped out of it as soon as his phone rang. He went from panicked to relieved as soon as he heard the voice on the other end. Must have been the man's partner.

The dust kicked up by the man's car has settled. Sayuri needs to move, check on Anna and Lourdes, but she's tired. Barely slept the night before, kept coming back to this room to get away from Max. She used to find comfort sleeping beside her husband. Now he's too loud, every sound an echo in their bedroom. He falls asleep before she can tell him what she's found in this room. In the wallpaper. He doesn't want to know, blocking her out without saying a word.

If he can't hear the problem, it doesn't exist.

Dean pried; his questions made Sayuri uncomfortable. Did he know the room’s secrets? Sayuri wanted to protect her space, heard the whispers coming from the walls telling her not to say anything.

She looks back, feels the wallpaper beckoning her closer. Her knees hit the hardwood floor as her fingers reach out. Hovering close to the paper as if the vines will come to life for her. If she waits long enough, perhaps they will.

The next time she looks up, she's shuffled halfway around the room, her knees aching. But she saw something behind the yellow thicket. There, just there! A gaze meeting hers, a face taking shape. Sayuri scoots closer and closer, the scent of the old paper thick and heavy in her nose.

The room is grateful for her protection. Max, Anna, Dean Winchester...not one of them would understand. Would see what she sees. 

Perhaps tonight, the room will reveal its secrets to her.


	5. Chapter 5

“Her name was Irene Grantham. According to the records I found, she was murdered in 1904.”

In the kitchen of Jocelyn Campbell’s house, Dean skims over the pages Sam set in front of him. “And you’re sure she’s our midnight wanderer?”

“It all fits,” Sam explains. His arm crosses over Dean’s, drawing his focus to the relevant information. “I made these copies at the Historical Society downtown. Most are from the newspaper, but one of the volunteers helped me find journals and records from some of the families who owned property near Nine Oaks.”

Dean has already listened to the recap of Sam's trip into downtown Charleston at Edmond’s suggestion. Apparently the Historical Society was a trove of information that couldn't be found by Sam's extensive online research prowess.

Sam smiles. “It was over a hundred years ago, but neighbors were nosy, even back then.”

The Granthams owned Nine Oaks at the turn of the century, having purchased the plantation in 1875. They brought it back from a defunct farm to one of the largest rice producing plantations in the Lowcountry. Irene, the oldest daughter of Morris and Louise Grantham, was killed when her family was robbed on their way home from church.

Sam reads the account from one of his photocopies while Dean matches the details with what they witnessed the night before.

“She was shot on the road but she died at the manor, along with her father and her brother. Nine Oaks was sold not long after that. No male relatives were left to run the plantation.”

“She’s the right age, and the timeframe matches up,” Dean says, recalling the bare-bones entries in the Men of Letters’ records. “If she started haunting the place right away, that would explain the presence of a _female spirit_ like the notes mentioned. Her murder would've left behind a restless spirit.”

Without moving away, Sam continues to study his notes. His chest is barely an inch from the back of Dean’s shoulder; Dean can feel it each time Sam takes a deep breath. With anyone else Dean would be pushing and shoving for personal space. With his brother, he craves the opposite.

Then he remembers the dark cloud that consumed him while he was in the manor with Sayuri. The bone-crushing misery, pulse-stopping inadequacy. Dean should know by now, not to let himself become trapped in a supernatural maelstrom like that, but it came upon him so suddenly, so fiercely, there was no defense.

He hasn’t told Sam yet.

Whether the depression vortex came from the house or Sayuri, Dean isn’t sure. However, he’s confident that whatever’s haunting Nine Oaks is dangerous and needs to go.

Five minutes was long enough for Dean to consider reaching into his chest and suffocating his own bruised heart to spare it further pain. Sayuri has been living in that house for months.

No wonder she’s a pale shadow of her former self.

Newly determined, Dean angles his head to look at Sam. “Any of these tell us where Irene’s buried? I’m itchin’ for a little salt n’ burn.”

Sam’s grin reappears. His lips are close enough for Dean to see the way they’ve been bitten pink. Another anxious habit.

“Probably in the same place all of the Granthams were buried,” he says. “In their own personal cemetery.”

“Edmond said it would be right past the ruins of the old smokehouse.”

Dean steps carefully along behind Sam, flashlight trained on the ground. The footpath winding back and away from the main house is old and overgrown, the roots of numerous oak trees emerging from the ground like mythical sea-beasts before plunging back into the dirt. He has already tripped twice.

They nearly miss the plantation’s old smokehouse. The building has been reduced to little more than half-walls of moss-covered brick and rotting wooden beams. Dean figures they’re at least a quarter of a mile away from the manor.

“How come Jocelyn’s family didn’t take care of this cemetery?” Dean wonders out loud. “Seems like a pretty obvious chore to me, especially if they knew something was haunting the place.”

Apparently the volunteer Sam worked with down at the Historical Society was extra helpful, because Sam has an answer for that, too.

“Their trust only covered the remaining property. The plantation was split into different parcels and sold off back in the 1950’s. The land that we’re on now isn’t owned by the same investment group.”

“Awesome,” Dean mutters. “I love trespassing.”

He doesn’t need to see Sam to know that his brother is rolling his eyes. True, they’d be trespassing _regardless_ , but at least they have a connection to the current Nine Oaks property.

Sam pulls up short, staring into the mottled darkness ahead. There’s a half-moon tonight, but hardly any light reaches the ground through the wide-reaching oak canopy.

“That’s what we’re looking for.”

Dean raises his flashlight. Up ahead is a low gate, wrought iron and rusted from disuse. A crudely fashioned iron oak tree stands atop the gate. The only evidence of the fence that once surrounded the cemetery are blackened lines where the wood rotted after decades of humidity and rain, and a handful of sunken fence posts that look like tombstones themselves.

They step around the gate and enter the cemetery together. Dean drops his duffel on the ground beside a small, unadorned headstone and swings his flashlight around.

“At least it’s small?”

Sam nods, dropping the shovels beside Dean’s bag and skipping his light from stone to stone. “Size matters,” he jokes. “Now go find us a grave.”

Dean starts on the right while Sam turns to the left. His light reveals small groups of headstones where immediate family members have been buried close together. Company in the afterlife.

Doesn’t matter where you’re buried, folks, Dean thinks. In heaven, you find the people you’re meant to be with.

The cemetery is overgrown. It’s a decent bet that no one’s set foot in here for decades, maybe even half a century or more. The ground is covered in long grass and the headstones are simple. No sculptures or monuments. No reasons to show off in a private cemetery. The only imposing grave is at the back, a large stone tomb built at the highest point. There was once something carved into the flat sides, but the engraving is so old, Dean can’t make out any of the letters.

There are more roots within the cemetery than outside of it. They've knocked stones aside, nature winning the battle against stone. Moss rests on the cracked headstones like a soft cloak. In certain places, the trees have grown around the headstones. Absorbing them. Protecting them.

“I got it!”

Dean follows the sound of Sam’s voice to the opposite side, tilting his flashlight down towards the grave at Sam’s feet.

“That’s our girl. Irene Elizabeth Grantham,” Dean reads. “Born 1879, died 1904.”

As luck has it, Irene’s headstone is set far enough away from any trees that the ground is relatively root-free. Her marker is less than two feet high, made of smooth white stone that’s only partially covered with green moss. Above her name, there’s an outline of a simple cross. Beside her grave stands a higher stone shaped like an obelisk that bears the names of her father and mother.

Sam steps away and returns a moment later with the shovels.

That luck holds. Less than an hour later, they’ve made significant progress. Sam drops his shovel on the pile of dirt beside Irene’s grave and stares down to where Dean continues to dig.

“Didn’t call break time, Sammy.”

“C’mon, Dean. Your back’s gotta be killing you. That couch wasn’t comfortable, I checked.”

His back _does_ hurt, but he’s driven by something else. The sense memory of what it felt like to fall into absolute darkness, so angry and hurt that he could’ve picked up his beloved gun and used it on the closest human being. Sayuri. Anna. Little Lourdes. Or himself.

He keeps digging because he can’t shake the memory of what it felt like to have his will trampled along with his spirit.

Half an hour later, Dean really does need a break. Sam helps Dean haul himself out of the four-foot deep hole and hands him a bottle of water.

“Didn’t you bring anything stronger?”

Sam doesn’t dignify that with a response. He picks up a shovel and lowers himself into the grave, picking up where Dean left off. In deference to the warm night and unrelenting humidity, Sam stripped down to his t-shirt. His shoulder muscles are visible through the tight fabric, biceps flexing each time he raises a shovelful of clay-rich soil and tosses it over the side of the grave.

Dean is so caught up, he doesn’t notice when Sam stops digging.

“Dean.”

Sam’s voice gives Dean chills. Wide-eyed, Sam stares past Dean’s knees, towards the shallow creek that winds through the entire plantation.

Low mist rolls through the cemetery, embracing every headstone in its path. It circles Irene’s grave, cutting Sam and Dean off from their escape. The phrase _silent as the grave_ takes on new meaning as the sounds of a muggy night are muffled before cutting out completely.

Dean’s breath fogs when he exhales, icy fingers dancing over his skin. Cold. Not the heat he felt earlier.

He turns around and finds the ghost of Irene Grantham staring back at him.

Sam scuffles with the moist earth as he levers himself out of the grave and steps up to Dean’s side. In one smooth move, he pulls his gun from the back of his jeans and points it at the murdered woman’s ghost.

Dean is frozen, unable to reach for his own weapon. He wants to warn Sam, to brace himself for the storm of emotion he felt earlier, but he's been robbed of his voice.

“It won’t work.”

Irene speaks nearly as quietly as the mists that carried her here. Up close, Dean’s able to see the tears in her cream-colored dress, blue ribbons tattered and dirty. Two misshapen bloodstains mark where the thieves’ bullets pierced her flesh. One below her right collarbone, the other over her stomach.

She never stood a chance.

Sam recovers first. “You can’t stop us from doing this.”

Irene’s face doesn’t bear the signs of violence the way her dress does. For a ghost who’s been around as long as she has, her visage is remarkably serene. She stares at the Winchesters without moving, mist curling around her feet. When Dean looks into her eyes, he feels inexplicably sad. It’s nothing like the agony he experienced in the manor. 

The realization hits him in the gut like the gunshot that killed this young woman: Irene isn’t responsible for the consuming madness of Nine Oaks. Good news and bad news. The Winchesters always end up muddling through a mixture of both.

“If I thought it would help, I would not stop you,” Irene tells them through pale gray lips. “If digging my grave meant release from this prison, I would have lured hunters here years ago.”

Sam hasn’t lowered his gun. “Something else is keeping you here.”

A violent shiver catches Dean off guard as Irene drifts towards her parents’ headstone. Sam reaches out and lays his hand on Dean’s shoulder. At his touch, Dean takes his first full breath in minutes. Sam leaves his hand there.

“I come here to be with them,” she says, transparent fingers hovering over cold, impersonal stone. “They aren’t here, but I like to think they are still with me. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why I…”

And Dean gets it. “Why you’re still you, even after all this time,” he says, grateful to have his voice returned.

Irene turns towards them, her eyes suddenly wide and desperate. Quick as a lightning flash, her demeanor changes.

“You must understand,” she pleads, “I did what I could! But that was very little.” Her form flickers, claws forming in the low fog as if it could drag her back into the mists. “I am not as strong as she is!”

“Who’s she?” Dean demands, stepping out of Sam’s grip.

“She can’t reach me here. We are too far from the house.”

“Who is she?” Sam repeats with even more force, long legs cutting through the fog. “Why is she so powerful?”

“The others!” Irene gasps, her face changing, serene mask cracking to reveal the kind of fear Dean’s never seen in a ghost before.“The family! I need to go back…”

“Wait!” Dean feels the clues slipping through his cold fingers. “Tell us everything you can. We can help you!”

His offer falls on deaf ears. Irene’s fear consumes her, hands clutching her breast as if the bullets are still ripping through her flesh. Her shriek cuts through the cemetery like a blade severing the dream from reality. 

“I must go back!” She moans. “If she knows I’ve gone, she’ll be able to…”

Dean makes a last-ditch attempt to get through to her.

“Irene!” he calls out. To his surprise, she blinks and turns to him. He may only have a moment, not enough time to choose his words carefully. “You can’t stop her, not without us. Tell us her name, and I’ll swear on everything I have, Irene. I swear we’ll stop her.”

Behind him, Sam gasps. Dean feels nothing for a moment, numb as Irene’s ghost rushes towards him. He sees her eyes, fathomless and frantic, unable to blink as the mist hits his knees and crests over him like a tidal wave. Then a chill unlike anything he’s ever felt, blood freezing in his veins as her spirit passes through his body and disappears.

Dean faints.

He comes to in Sam’s arms moments later with a name on his quivering lips.

“ _Emma Summerlin_.”

Dean’s had one hell of a day.

It takes over an hour for him to stop shaking. He’s barely aware of the quarter-mile trek back to the Impala, Sam shouldering the duffel bag and their shovels, as well as most of Dean’s weight when he stumbles on unsteady feet.

With Sam behind the wheel, they wind their way back to the main house, half-expecting to encounter Irene again based on the way she fled the cemetery, but it's dark, no lights in any of the rooms, including the office behind those wide balcony doors. Dean does his best to keep his eyes from drifting in that direction.

They wait, sitting side by side in the Impala, until Dean finally stops shivering. In silence, Sam backs out of the drive and turns back towards Jocelyn’s house.

“Are you okay?” Sam asks as soon as they walk through the door and lock it behind them.

Dean scowls. “I would’ve said something if I wasn’t, Sam. Not the first time a ghost has barrelled right through me.”

“I’ve never seen you shake like that,” Sam says, treading carefully. “I think it’s because Irene was so terrified. When she passed through, you got hit with all of those emotions at once. It had to be awful.”

Awful, yes, but far from the worst thing Dean’s felt today. 

His chest feels cold and tight, like he can't take a deep breath. It's as if he can't get warm despite the muggy air seeping into the house through old windows and broken seals. Sam digs one of his hoodies out of his bag and drapes it over Dean’s shoulders. He's unwilling to admit how much it helps to have Sam's scent surrounding him.

“It’s not going on my top-ten list of experiences, that’s for sure. But I’m fine, man. We’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

He's talking about Emma Summerlin.

When Irene passed through his chest, she left the name behind along with an icy spike of pure terror. It was the name they were looking for: the true evil behind Nine Oaks Plantation.

If only they knew who she was.

Back in the Impala, as Dean’s body came back down to baseline, he found comfort in the sound of Sam’s voice as he’d speculated out loud. Sam couldn’t remember reading anything about Emma Summerlin, or _any_ member of the Summerlin family, in his pile of notes, books, and photocopies.

Dean reaches out towards Sam’s stack of research. “Give me one of those books. We’ll go through everything again, just in case.”

“Dean.” Sam only uses that low tone when he’s about to disapprove of something. Dean hears it enough to recognize it immediately. “You’re exhausted. I know you want to find out who Emma was, but you need to rest.”

“Fine.” Dean surrenders. He’s about to turn towards the couch when Sam hooks his hand through Dean’s elbow and spins him around.

“Not the couch, Dean. Get upstairs and go to bed.”

Petulance takes over. Dean’s too tired to hold back. “You stayed up all night,” he points out.

“Yeah, and I’m fucking exhausted.” Sam’s sigh is heavy, telling Dean more about the state of his brother’s health than words could. “I’ve got nothing right now, no adrenaline left, and no clue where to begin on this whole ‘second ghost’ angle. So I’m going upstairs…”

Maintaining his hold, Sam pulls Dean towards the stairs. “And you’re coming with me.”

Too stunned to argue, Dean allows himself to be led up the stairs and down the hall. When Sam steers Dean away from the bedroom he chose, he nearly stops breathing.

“Mine’s more comfortable,” Sam explains when Dean side-eyes him. Meaning, at some point, he tried the bed in the room Dean took.

“Where are you planning on sleeping?”

Sam merely shakes his head, smiling softly. “Shut up, Dean.”

There are no words for the feeling that swells up in Dean’s chest, melting the last icicles left behind from Irene’s field trip through his body.

Sam keeps him on task, watchful as Dean strips out of his jeans once he’s brushed his teeth and splashed warm water on his face. Dean’s about to crawl into bed (Sam was right, his is more comfortable) when Sam hands him a clean t-shirt.

“For my sake,” he says, a sparkle in his eye. “Yours smells like grave dirt and ozone.”

“That’s _Eau de Hunter_ , Sammy. Not a fan?”

Sam’s response is to shove him onto the mattress and walk away.

Dean lies in Sam’s bed and drifts in and out of a doze while Sam changes out of his own dirty clothes and washes up. He feels better when Sam’s weight finally hits the mattress beside him.

“Don’t snore,” Sam warns.

“Don’t kick me,” is Dean’s comeback.

He falls asleep to the quiet sound of Sam turning pages, rechecking notes and books for any mention of Emma Summerlin. Sam’s long legs give off plenty of heat beneath the thin sheets.

Halfway through the night, Dean stirs. He wakes up to a room full of moonlight, Sam asleep with a book still open on his chest. Fighting sleep’s pull, Dean carefully lifts the book and sets it on the floor. Scooting closer to his brother, it’s only a matter of moments before Dean is out, too.

Dean pours himself a second cup of coffee and offers the carafe to his brother, who groans and refuses another serving.

“No more, Dean, or I’m never gonna be able to sleep again.”

They’ve made no progress on Emma Summerlin. Sam’s been at the computer since they woke up, launching one search after another and coming up with nothing. Dean’s not doing any better.

“If Emma Summerlin’s ghost is the one running the show, she had to have died in that house, right?” Dean speculates. “Or at least somewhere on the grounds.”

Sam adds his own ideas. “Maybe she’s older than we thought. The house burned down once, remember? Back in the 1850’s. Meaning she could’ve died a century and a half ago, for all we know.”

“How the hell are we supposed to figure that out?”

Frustration is getting the best of Dean. Sleep helped—Dean tries not to consider the circumstances—but he feels hollow. Irene’s quick trip through his chest left him cold in more ways than one. Everything Amara forced him to confront, the vacuum her destruction left behind, was exacerbated by Irene’s frigid spirit as if she stole whatever warmth was left.

When he looks over at Sam, he’s able to steal back a little bit.

A knock on the front door startles both of them. Dean recognizes the silhouette through the opaque glass right away.

“Thought you boys might be hungry,” Edmond Tallier says, following Sam back into the kitchen. Dean’s brother is carrying a brown paper bag, the smells from which have his tongue rolling out the red carpet. “Picked this up from Loretta’s place down the road.”

From the aroma, the Winchesters are in for a treat.

“You didn’t have to bring this,” Sam tells Edmond, gratitude written all over his face. Dean pulls out carton after carton of warm food, laying the impromptu lunch feast out on the counter.

Through his glasses, Edmond’s eyes slant towards the bag of garbage sitting by the back door. Beer bottles, empty coffee packets, and fast-food wrappers. Dean feels unfairly judged, but with the spread in front of him, he doesn’t care.

“You know why, Sam. I see the kind of food you’ve been eating.” He grins. “Never argue with a man bearing the gift of Loretta’s buttermilk fried chicken.”

That’s a lesson Dean plans on committing to memory. The breading melts on his tongue, rich buttermilk crust tasting better than anything he’s eaten in the last few months. Sam is eating with no finesse whatsoever, a thin streak of grease running down his chin as he tears into a piece of thigh-meat.

Edmond watches them eat, picking from his own small plate, a seemingly satisfied smile on his ageless face.

In addition to the best damn fried chicken Dean’s ever put in his mouth, Edmond’s bags contained a styrofoam tub of baked mac & cheese (the kind Sam likes, with a crunchy golden crust), long green beans coated with butter and salt, creamy mashed potatoes, and fried okra. Dean’s skeptical about the okra, but once Sam moans around a small handful of the crispy little wheels, Dean grabs a few for his own plate.

Once the majority of the food is gone, Dean feels refueled, warm from the inside-out. Maybe he’s not up to 100%, but he’s close. Good Southern cooking works miracles, apparently.

Sam, who finished stuffing his face a few minutes ago, is using Edmond’s visit to question him about their mystery ghost. Dean listened while Sam provided the barest details about what they saw and heard in the old Nine Oaks cemetery last night. Edmond could probably handle the full account, but there’s no reason to put those kinds of images in his head.

Dean thinks of Jocelyn Campbell and her stories, almost certain she’d approve of the way they’re shielding her nephew.

“Summerlin…” He thinks on the name for a few minutes, fingers scratching his chin. “Can’t say that’s a name I’m familiar with, and I know most of the families who put down roots in this area.”

Just like that, they’re back to disappointment. Dean had hoped that Edmond would be able to help them with a clue. Any clue. Instead, they’re back to square one.

Edmond turns to Sam, who’s bagging the empty containers and napkins from their meal. “You mention that name down at the Historical Society yesterday?”

Sam shakes his head no. “We didn’t know about her then.” Suddenly his eyes go wide and he empties the contents of his jeans’ pockets on the counter. Muttering something Dean can’t make out, Sam searches through the detritus until he finds the piece of paper he’s looking for.

“The researcher that helped me yesterday,” Sam says, setting the post-it note on the counter and smiling at Dean, “told me to call him if I needed anything else.”

Dean’s spine goes rigid. “He gave you his phone number?”

Sam looks at the paper and shrugs. “He was helpful.”

Beside him, Dean can hear Edmond snickering. He grabs the note.

“And he wrote down his _personal_ number? He didn’t just give you a business card?”

Sam waves off the unexpected interrogation, figuratively twisting the knife in Dean’s back. Taking his phone and snatching the paper from Dean’s fingers, he steps out of the kitchen, leaving Edmond looking at Dean, eyes lowered in amusement.

“What?” Dean grumbles. “You don’t think that’s a little weird?”

The southerner gives him a lopsided smile and simply says, “Doesn’t matter at all what I think, Dean. That’s something you gotta work out on your own.”

Leaving Dean to his simmering jealousy, Edmond gathers the remaining trash and packs up the few pieces of chicken the three of them didn’t manage to eat. A few minutes later, Sam returns. Dean takes one look at the pink flush on his brother’s cheeks and turns away, scowling.

“He asked me to meet him at the Historical Society in an hour,” he hears Sam say. “He’s got something to show us.”

Stolen moments with his younger brother aren’t the only things Dean remembers from their last stay in Charleston. He remembers driving back roads and coastal highways, the oak canopy over the road, wisteria growing seemingly out of nowhere. The way the trees grew so close together, adding to the feeling that this city isolated itself from the rest of the world.

Time moved differently in Charleston.

When the Impala crosses the Ashley River and hits downtown Charleston, Dean notes how much has changed in the last decade and a half. More businesses, local shops giving way to high-line stores and national brands. Money, money, money everywhere he looks. Gone are some of the older row houses Dean appreciated when he and Sam walked through town on late summer afternoons. In their places are updated condos and a slew of restaurants boasting complicated seasonal menus.

Despite all of that, downtown Charleston retains its old world charm. Brick and cobblestone in front of colorful buildings, crepe myrtle trees draped delicately over wrought iron fences, tall oaks shading the sidewalks.

Sam directs him towards the Historical Society on the opposite side of the peninsular city where Dean has more trouble than he wants to admit finding a parking spot that accommodates his baby.

“You can wait in the car, Dean,” Sam offers. “Or meet me back here in, like, an hour.”

“Shut up and help me find a spot,” Dean fires back, glancing down alleyways to hide the scowl on his face. He’s not about to let Sam walk into the Historical Society by himself. Not this time.

Ten minutes later, Sam and Dean are stepping into the Historical Society of Charleston. Sam smooths the front of his shirt and tucks his hair behind his ears.

Dean briefly considers dragging him out of the building, to hell with the research. He doesn’t really want to know, or see, the volunteer with whom Sam bonded while Dean suffered in that miserable yellow room.

“Samuel! There you are.”

The young man skipping in their direction is not what Dean was expecting. Sam’s eager volunteer is in his mid-twenties and stands a few inches shorter than Dean, his build slight like he prefers to lift books, not weights. His hair is dark blonde and artfully (not to mention artificially) swept away from his face, revealing pale blue eyes that even Dean can admit are quite attractive.

His clothing stands out in the rather drab room, dark jeans painted on his skinny legs and a vibrant azure shirt tucked into his pants, rich brown loafers and a gold bow tie sitting neatly at his collar completing the look.

Dean imagines that he’s looking at Peter Pan all grown up. Arching his eyebrows, Dean looks over at Sam, thinking, _seriously_?

“Bennett, thanks for meeting us,” Sam greets the man graciously, shaking his outstretched hand. When the man notices Dean, Sam smoothly makes introductions. “This is Dean, my partner on this project. Dean, this is Bennett. He helped me with my research yesterday.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Dean,” Bennett says, polite as can be, but Dean catches the shadow of disappointment on his face. In Bennett’s eyes, Dean doesn’t hold a candle to Sam. “I’m so glad you came back.”

Dean shakes his hand anyway. “Bennett? You don’t go by Ben?”

“Bennett is my middle name,” he explains, coy smile directed at Sam. “It’s better than going by Wilson.”

“Says who?” Dean mutters, earning himself a swift hip-check from his brother that serves as his first and only warning. Bennett is too wrapped up in Sam’s presence to notice.

Sammy’s won himself an admirer. Fucking _fantastic_.

For today’s trip, Sam donned his cleanest white shirt, the pointed collar soft and open, baring his throat and the golden triangle where his collarbones meet. He tucked the shirt into a pair of dark jeans topped with a caramel leather belt that Dean smugly notes was pinched from his own duffle bag.

In that outfit, Bennett likely sees Sam as the hot, older professor type, and Dean can’t really blame him. Without four layers of shirts and jackets to cover him up, Sam’s body is on display, and it’s a damn fine sight, indeed.

And since Sam introduced Dean as his partner, not his brother, he’s free to appreciate the view, too.

Bennett beckons them further into the Historical Society with a flourish, leading them past visitors and other volunteers. In the Impala on the drive up to Charleston, Sam explained that he told Bennett he was working on scripting a series pilot for television. 

“Southern gothic,” Sam told him. “Dark and mysterious. HBO-level stuff. I mentioned I was interested in old crime stories, things like that. Luckily, he said he was doing his Master’s project on something similar.”

Given the way Bennett can’t keep his eyes off Sam, Dean’s certain the volunteer would’ve said anything to keep the conversation flowing.

The Winchesters follow Bennett through a door marked ‘Staff Only’ into a room that feels like a mini library. It must serve as a private work room for the Society’s staff and volunteers, with a single long table down the middle and bookshelves built from floor to ceiling. Bennett points them towards a short stack of papers sitting at one end of the table.

“When I called, you said you could help me,” Sam prompts, treating Bennett to a smile.

“Yes, the Summerlin murders!” Bennett presses his hand to his chest. It’s a bit too dramatic for Dean, but if Bennett has the information they’re looking for, he’ll give the guy a gold star. “I can’t believe you asked, Samuel.”

Dean flinches at the use of Sam’s formal name. Sam, on the other hand, doesn’t bat an eyelash.

“You’ll just have to tell me where you’re getting your inside information,” the researcher continues, indicating the pile. “Those murders were almost unheard of until a couple of years ago. I thought I was onto something no one else knew about when I was logging these records.”

The stack on the table includes journals, bills of sale, brittle newspaper clippings tucked safely into plastic sleeves, and property records.

Dean’s about to ask Bennett to sum it all up for them when Sam jumps in and says, “I don’t know all that much. My source really only provided the name, and the fact that Emma Summerlin was connected to the old Nine Oaks Plantation.”

Bennett looks impressed. He bats his blue eyes and hovers beside Sam’s shoulder when he sits down. Dean’s instincts berate him for letting some other guy flirt so blatantly with his brother. He reminds them, for the last time, that he has no claim over Sam anymore. Not in that way. 

“Emma Summerlin lived there, of course,” Bennett tells them, pulling out a piece of yellowed paper. “This is a carriage slip from 1912 when Emma traveled down to the plantation. She’d just been hired on as the nanny.”

“Who hired her?”

“Why, Mr. Frederick Calhoun, of course.” At Sam and Dean’s blank looks, Bennett gasps. “The Calhouns are only one of the oldest and most famous families in Charleston. Frederick Calhoun bought Nine Oaks Plantation back in 1905, I think.”

Right after the murder of Irene Grantham and her father. The pieces are finally coming together. Bennett is only too happy to recount the whole story.

“From what I’ve put together, Frederick bought the land for one of his sons, Albert. The young man was newly married, and within a few years they had two children. Regrettably, Albert’s wife died from a tragic illness, leaving him to care for them.”

“Leading to Emma Summerlin.”

“I couldn’t find anything about her family,” Bennett admits sadly, fingers drifting across the page in front of Sam. “This journal belonged to a member of the Morris family. They owned land nearby. According to Mr. Morris’ wife, Emma was a strange, quiet young woman. Took care of the children but kept to herself. Everything appeared normal until 1916.”

It’s a story the Winchesters have heard over and over. They know where this tale leads.

Sam is somber when he asks, “What happened?”

“That’s not as clear,” Bennett admits. “It’s better left to wildly creative souls like you and I.”

He winks at Sam, and Dean finds himself maintaining a tenuous grasp on his tolerance. It’s far from the first time he’s had a front row seat to someone flirting with his baby brother. It is the first time in years that Sam has flirted back so convincingly. That type of reciprocation is harder to swallow.

“Nothing in these records tells us what happened. Only the result. In the span of a single night, the entire family was dead. Emma Summerlin killed Albert Calhoun, the two children, and herself.”

Bennett gives them a moment to absorb the information. Dean is puzzling over Emma’s fate, how her spirit became trapped in the manor, what drove her to murder three people and kill herself.

From what Dean felt in the room with the yellow wallpaper, Emma’s story came to a very disturbed, very violent end, the remnants of which only grew stronger as her spirit tainted the house.

Sam leans back to look at Bennett. “I checked so many different sources. Why didn’t I read about any of this in the newspaper?”

“Remember, Samuel, Frederick was a _Calhoun_. If he didn’t want the city to know what happened, he had the means to erase the story. He could have spun his son’s death a dozen different ways. No one needed to know that a servant had gone mad and slaughtered his son’s family. The damage was done. Emma couldn’t hurt anyone else.”

If only that were true, Dean thinks, he and Sammy could retire.

“In fact, no one would’ve known about it if one of Mr. Morris’ ancestors hadn’t willed her family’s entire library collection to the society.”

“You must have a theory.” There goes Sam, turning on the charm again. “You’ve probably studied these more than anyone else.”

Bennett’s cheeks flush, a faint pink to complement his light complexion. He’s attractive, Dean admits, and he can see why Sam might be interested in Bennett beyond getting Emma’s life story, though he doesn’t want to acknowledge it. 

Of course, personally, Dean’s always been partial to brown hair and hazel eyes. To broad shoulders and narrow hips. To a soul he knows better than his own. Pretty much to anything that makes Sam, Sam. Dean may be pushing forty, but he’s always been a one-man kind of guy.

Bennett slides his chair closer to Sam’s. “The Summerlin murders were going to be the main focus of my Masters’ work,” he says, angling for more eye-contact. Dean might as well not even be in the room. He crosses his arms and listens. “I haven’t shared this with anyone else yet, but,” his voice drops, “I’m almost certain Emma was having an affair with her employer.”

In Bennett’s opinion, a young widower with the Calhoun name should’ve been remarried within a year or two of his wife’s death.

“It should have been like a season of _The Bachelor_ ,” Bennett jokes. “Young women throwing themselves at the chance to marry into the Calhoun family.”

That an eligible young man like Albert remained single raised a flag. As to what pushed the fragile, isolated young woman over the edge, their budding historian has worked up a theory for that as well.

“Emma could have miscarried or given birth to a child who died shortly after.” Pale blue eyes cloud over with sadness. “A bastard child in the Calhoun family would’ve given dear old Frederick another motive to cover up the entire misfortune. Mental healthcare for women being as barbaric as it was back then, Emma might have snapped, causing her to kill her lover and his two innocent children.”

Leaving a stain on Emma’s soul for eternity and keeping her murderous spirit trapped in that horrible house, forced to witness life going on without her. A dangerous prisoner becoming more and more enraged as the years went on, hatred and insanity spreading throughout the manor until every board, every beam, every fixture was soaked in it.

Irene’s terror makes perfect sense now.

At a silent look from Sam, Dean ducks out of the room leaving his brother to finish up with Bennett. He’s unable to hear what they’re saying from the hallway, shuffling his feet while imagining what the two of them _could_ be doing in private. When Sam steps out a few minutes later, Dean can hear Bennett say, “I’ll hold you to that, Samuel,” with affection warming the tone of his voice.

He waits until they’re outside to ask what Bennett meant.

“It’s nothing, Dean,” Sam assures, sighing when Dean doesn’t let up with his stare. “I only told him that I’d pass along anything I find out about Emma Summerlin. For his project.”

His words are enough to smooth Dean’s ruffled feathers. For now.

As they make their way back to the Impala, Sam grabs Dean’s wrist and steers him into the old city market that splits downtown Charleston in half. Every step he takes with Sam’s hand on his arm eases the ache in Dean’s chest.

Up and down the market, vendors fill their stalls with everything from locally baked treats to t-shirts and pottery to sell to the endless groups of tourists visiting the Holy City for its many charms. Sam buys a bag of sugared pecans, tossing them up and attempting to catch them in his mouth while Dean tries not to laugh. When Sam offers some to Dean, he takes the small handful, thinking that he’d rather taste the sugar off Sam’s fingers, instead.

Along the edges of the long, low market buildings, Dean sees young boys and girls sitting beside their Gullah grandmothers, their small, nimble fingers creating simple roses out of long blades of green and yellow sweetgrass while the wizened old women weave elaborate baskets.

A memory flares in Dean’s mind. He can picture Sam at fifteen, running around with the same kind of sweetgrass roses in his pockets. Dean used to pull them out of his threadbare jeans after Sam fell asleep, laying them out on the dresser to dry.

Dean wonders whatever happened to those flowers.

Sayuri stands in the middle of her office, barely breathing. Downstairs, Max is talking to Anna, his voice frantic, no doubt telling their nanny that Sayuri is not to be left alone with the baby.

She’s getting worse.

Late last night, Max discovered Sayuri in their daughter’s room, hovering at the side of her crib. Lourdes was crying but Sayuri didn’t react. It was as if the screams couldn't reach her. 

Max dragged her out of the nursery and into the kitchen, pushing her into a chair while he checked her over, asking what was wrong. Questions Sayuri didn't know how to answer. The offer was made to drive her to the hospital if she wanted to go, but Sayuri wasn’t supposed to leave. That would be just what Max wanted.

The paranoia eats away at her well-being. Anna has tried to be supportive, but Sayuri can see through her act. She wants Max… why wouldn’t she? If Max can prove that Sayuri is sick, unfit to take care of her own child, then there’s nothing stopping them from being together.

Sayuri has to stay.

Here in this room, she knows the truth. The walls have ears and eyes. They see and hear and whisper to Sayuri, telling her Max will push her aside, take her child away from her, leave her to rot in this manor alone just like so many before her.

Sayuri knows. She has listened to their stories, each more tragic than the one before. Her fate is hidden somewhere in the yellow wallpaper; the answers are there if she could only get deep enough, untangle the vines that try to choke her. These poor, trapped women can help save her from Max and his base needs. Broken dolls thrown away, their eyes haunted and their mouths empty, silently calling out to Sayuri from behind the wallpaper.

They need her help, too.

She ignores Max’s voice and turns back to the wall she’d been investigating last night, the one she remembers running her fingers over before she suddenly found herself standing over Lourdes’ crib, oblivious as to how she had gotten there.

The women are waiting for her, fighting their way through swirls and thorns the color of rotting cream, but the one Sayuri is looking for isn't there. The woman with the pale, golden eyes, who watches the rest. If Sayuri can find her again, free her from the suffocating yellow forest, maybe she can tell Sayuri how to end her suffering and silence the paranoia.

The wallpaper is warm beneath Sayuri’s fingers. She must be getting close.


	6. Chapter 6

Now that the tragic tale of Emma Summerlin has been brought to light, Sam and Dean begin digging up bodies all over the place. Figuratively speaking.

With Bennett’s thorough research providing new insight, Sam scours the internet looking for new information. He hits paydirt almost immediately.

“So, check this out,” he calls to Dean from where he’s sitting on the front porch. The sun is just starting to sink below the western treeline and a cool breeze brings fresh air up onto the piazza. For once, Dean doesn’t mind coming outside; it’s actually pleasant.

“Frederick Calhoun didn’t sell Nine Oaks right away,” Sam reads from the archive site. “After his son was killed, he rented the house to another family. Friends of his, if I’m reading this right.”

“Let me guess,” Dean muses, cold beer in his hand. Sam shook his head when Dean asked if he wanted one, too. “Wife went nuts, killed her family.”

“Close enough,” Sam says, frowning. “Less than a year after moving into the house, the three children were murdered and the wife hung herself in one of the rooms. Her husband came home to find them all dead.” 

Dean has a sneaking suspicion as to the room in which she did the deed. He shudders, trying not to picture that hideous yellow wallpaper, because with the image come the emotions, and Dean would happily go the rest of his life without reliving that heartbreaking experience.

An hour later, they’ve made a list of six women who committed suicide between 1918 and 1952 after killing at least one member of their family. The Campbells intervened after that, stemming the bloodshed.

“The last man to own Nine Oaks sold off most of the farmland after his wife died.” Dean is taking his turn at the computer. “That left only the house, which he signed over to Thomas Campbell. It’s been empty for over fifty years. Up until now.”

Sam leans back, crossing his arms over his chest. “So the Campbells knew something was going on, they just didn’t know how to stop it. They did the next best thing. If I had to guess, they probably made a deal with the owner to keep the problems quiet if he just turned over the house and left.”

“How come other hunters didn’t come down and try to stop it from happening?” Dean wonders out loud. The sun is low in the sky, setting the treetops aflame. Sam’s cheekbones catch the light, angled and perfect as he ponders the same question. “Couldn’t they see the pattern?”

“Maybe they did,” Sam whispers. “Maybe they failed.”

Dean sobers at the thought, but it makes sense. Unless hunters were connected to a society like the Men of Letters, or part of a family such as the Campbells, most operated in isolation. Especially back in the days before the internet connected everyone. Hunters passing through a roadhouse here or there might share stories from the road, but even that was rare. There’s no telling how many hunters tried and failed to cleanse the house of Emma’s spirit. Perhaps they never knew how. After all, it took a ghostly intervention for the Winchesters to learn the name of the murderous spirit haunting Nine Oaks.

Dean rubs his chest. _Lucky him._

“What I don’t get,” Sam says later that evening in between bites of another scrumptious meal from Loretta’s set out on the kitchen counter, “is how Emma’s spirit is doing it.”

Edmond had given them directions to Loretta’s Back Porch in case they were still craving her fried chicken and fixins. Sam sent Dean out for dinner while he rechecked Jocelyn’s journals for any mention of other hunters investigating the Nine Oaks house. Dean returned with homemade chicken pot pie, an even bigger tub of mashed potatoes, and some kind of ‘Southern Harvest’ salad for Sam that contained crap like cranberries, pecans, and whatever the hell _mesclun_ was.

When Dean also pulled out a smaller container of that baked mac & cheese, the poorly hidden grin on Sam’s face made Dean forget about the way Bennett looked at his brother.

Sam licks the last of the cheesy, golden crust from his fork and sighs. “I mean, why does it take so long for her victims to snap? If all Emma wants is death, why not just do it right away?”

There’s the question Dean has been dreading all day.

For a moment, Dean thinks he’s off the hook for another hour or two, enough time for him to concoct a decent explanation, but Sam reads his face in a heartbeat.

“Do you know something, Dean?”

Ignoring the way Dean is studiously averting his gaze, Sam gets up and crosses the kitchen to sit beside Dean at the table.

“What did you see at the manor yesterday?”

Dean stands and begins pacing the room. Which turns out to be a terrible plan, because Sam knows every move he's got.

“I didn’t see anything, Sam,” he insists.

“Then what? I can see you're freaked out, Dean, so if it wasn't something you saw at the house, then why the hell are you acting so cagey?” Sam's mind takes him straight to the worst case scenario. “Is this about Amara? Are you still—”

Dean rounds on Sam before he can finish the thought. Face to face, Dean’s nose is inches from Sam's chin.

“It was what I felt!” The words explode from his chest, and once they start flowing, Dean can’t turn off the tap. “You don’t understand, Sam, being in that house was like suffocating. Not at first, but once it hit me, it was like being possessed. Only instead of making me do anything, it made me—”

Just like that, Dean’s back in the room with the yellow wallpaper, powerless. Scared of what was being dredged out of him, yet knowing it was all true. Confronting his worst fears while the hole in his soul grew larger and blacker.

“Made you what?”

Dean looks Sam in the eyes. Seeing nothing but comfort there, he shudders and says, “It made me feel _everything_ , Sam. All at once. Everything Amara left behind, along with all the crap I’d buried.”

Sam is unspeakably gentle when he urges Dean to continue, placing his hand on Dean’s shoulder for support.

“I couldn’t stop it. The way it came over me suddenly—everything in my head turned to poison and I wanted…” His breaths are coming faster and faster now. “Sam, I wanted…”

“What, Dean?” Sam uses his touch to pull Dean forward until their chests brush. “You can tell me.”

“I wanted to take my gun out and use it.” Dean can feel Sam stop breathing. “I wanted to use it on myself, on Sayuri. Whatever would make it stop, I was willing to go that far.”

Dean pushes Sam away, unable to swallow the soft empathy in his gaze and desperate to put space between them before he does the unthinkable. Kissing Sam would ruin the hard-won balance they've built in the years since Dean went to Sam at Stanford and pleaded for his help.

But the way Sam is looking at him now, shaded and smoky and kind, makes Dean want to take a sledgehammer to that wall. He'd reduce the damn thing to rubble just to get at his brother.

“Dean—”

“I think that's how Emma does it,” he cuts in without waiting to hear what Sam’s going to say. “She gets in your head, twists everything around. She’s probably done it to all of her victims, driving them crazy and watching them snap.”

“But you were in the house for what? Twenty minutes? You must’ve gotten the full dose.”

“She takes her time with the others,” Dean speculates, keeping his back to Sam. “I was an immediate threat.”

Dean lets out a deep breath when Sam steps further away, grateful for the personal space as he tries not to shatter. He's… delicate. Goddamn this ghost. Seriously. Dean made peace with his fate after Amara, more or less, accepting that he was too damaged to continue.

“Where were you when it hit you?” Sam finally asks. “In the manor, I mean. Which room?”

Dean looks up, one eyebrow raised. “The office. The one with the big balcony doors.”

Sam comes to the same conclusion as Dean. “What do you bet that’s the same room where Emma’s victims eventually killed themselves?”

Dean nods. “There’s got to be something about that room. It just felt wrong.”

After that, there's really only one direction for their plans to take. 

“We need to get in that house.”

Watching the house that night yields nothing new.

Sam and Dean sit in the Impala, parking as close as they can without alerting the Benbows. Unlike their last stakeout, there’s nothing to see. Even Irene is a no-show; they catch no trace of her moonlit figure gliding across the grounds.

They each step out and make a circle around the property just in case, but Nine Oaks is quiet for the night.

At 2 a.m., they give up.

Back at the house, Dean shuts himself in the second bedroom. If Sam were to offer to share… no, they have no excuses tonight, and Dean wouldn’t be able to help himself. Sam came too close earlier. Dean nearly confessed to everything because of a single look and a whisper of contact. His reawakened feelings for Sam would have been revealed, along with the agony he’s lived with since his connection to Amara was severed and she was once again a prisoner to the abyss.

Of course he wants Sam back the way he used to have him, familiar with every inch of that beloved body, knowing every thought that ran through his brilliant mind. He had Sam, body and soul, and he’d be crazy not to want that again. If Sam knew the extent of Amara’s revenge, the consequences of her banishment, he might give in and do the noble thing.

Save Dean. Self-sacrifice. It’s the Winchester’s signature move. The idea makes Dean sick to his stomach.

And Sam has handled too much already—helping Dean get back to 100%, recovering from his own injuries courtesy of the Darkness, finding hunts to ease them back into the game—without bearing the burden of Dean’s wants and desires.

Dean is grateful for what he does have. As far as he’s concerned, his wish came true. The one he made almost twenty years ago on a muggy summer night in Charleston under the new moon. He wished for the chance to hunt with Sam for the rest of his life—a Sam who was loyal, confident, and committed to the job. Committed to Dean. He has that. Who is he to ask for anything more?

Dean doesn’t have the right to simply _decide_ he wants to be with Sam. It has to be Sam’s choice, too, and he’s pretty sure that’s not going to happen, even if Sam hasn’t gone looking for a serious relationship since Amelia.

Sure, Sam hooks up. So does Dean. Finding a little action has become a kind of game: seeing who can score when, who can last longer.

The lines have always been vague when it comes to the _thing_ they used to have. Sam watches Dean kiss a girl in a bar; Dean watches from the motel room window as a girl goes down on Sam in the backseat of the Impala.

But there has never been another guy; Dean can’t has never allowed himself to go there, doesn’t want to go there. These days, he knows he’s ruined for anyone but his brother.

With thoughts like that going through his mind, it’s no surprise Dean tosses and turns for what feels like hours, finally succumbing to exhaustion as the night creeps towards dawn.

Turns out Sam had a restless night, too.

Dean finds him sitting on his own bed in the morning with his laptop on his thighs.

“Little early for porn, isn’t it?” Dean grumbles, in dire need of coffee.

“Had to make us a website,” Sam says, ignoring the jibe.

“You did what now?”

“Actually, I altered a page from before,” Sam continues like this is normal. “Charlie set these up ages ago in case we needed to back up our cover stories.”

Come to think of it, Dean remembers Charlie’s exasperation at finding out hunters still employed rigged phone numbers, using it as an excuse to revamp their system. Dean had no idea Sam was using her web templates.

“I needed to make it look like you and I can afford Nine Oaks, or else we’ll never be able to get in and see the place.”

“You want to con that real estate agent into letting us view the house?”

“Already did.” Sam indicates the phone on the bed by his hip. “Turns out the Benbows lease allows viewings for potential buyers when set up by the listing agent.”

He smiles at Dean. “Get dressed. We’re in luck.”

“It’s even better than I imagined,” Sam drawls, fully in character. His eyes make a full sweep of the grand foyer while Georgia Snipes looks on in delight.

“I told you, we kept as much of the original detail as possible,” she points out. “Now, let me direct your attention to the main parlor. Wait until you see the fireplace…”

Dean stops listening to the agent’s spiel, sticking close to Sam and playing the role of supportive partner. This is Sam’s show. Georgia Snipes was only too happy to drive down from the city and show them around. (Dean kept quiet about his previous visit, and the agent never brought it up.)

Anna answered the door when they arrived, graciously offering to take Lourdes out for a walk while they toured the manor. Sayuri was nowhere to be seen. Dean heard the hesitation in the nanny’s voice when he asked about Lourdes’ mother, a tension she couldn’t hide. The slight prickle at the back of Dean’s neck tells him that Sayuri is there. This long in the business, Dean can sense the phantom weight of eyes watching from the shadows.

“I’ve done my homework on this place,” Sam is saying. “This plantation doesn’t have the most peaceful history.”

“Show me a Southern plantation that does,” Georgia counters matter-of-factly. “Unfortunately, we cannot rewrite our history.”

She launches into a brief recap of Nine Oaks, grisly murder-suicides excluded. Her story revolves around the prestigious Calhoun name, how coveted the property is sure to be once it officially goes up for sale. Nothing probative, though. Dean doubts she has any idea about the extent of the evil that has touched this plantation.

Probably wouldn’t step foot on the property if she did.

Inevitably, the tour winds its way upstairs. Sam’s hand remains on Dean’s lower back, calming Dean when he begins to shake, as they make their way towards the room with the yellow wallpaper. He waits, skin tingling, for the wave to overtake him.

“You know,” Sam says, stopping outside Sayuri’s study, “Dean had a lot of questions about the land itself.”

Georgia turns to Dean. “Is that so?”

Sam grins, wide and friendly. “Oh yeah, big outdoorsman, right here.” He pats Dean’s chest. “Do you know much about the landscaping that was done, or what might be possible in the future?”

The distraction pays off. Georgia is more than happy to talk about the meticulous work that had been done outside the manor, and Dean’s humbled by Sam’s willingness to investigate the room on his own. 

He nods along as Georgia tells him about the land, the majority of his focus on Sam. Looking past Georgia’s shoulder, he watches Sam step into the study, the midday sun sending a beam of golden light into the hallway. A small part of Dean wants to go with him, to protect Sam from whatever Emma’s spirit might do, but he knows what’s in there, and he knows he can’t face that again.

A minute passes. Two. Four. Dean thinks he might be shaking again. He keeps counting in his head, almost five minutes now. What the hell is Sam doing?

He’s seconds from saying _screw it_ and going in after Sam when his brother reappears. Sam looks pale, slightly out of breath, but not enough for Georgia to notice anything out of the ordinary. Without thinking, Dean steps up to his side and wraps his arm around Sam’s waist.

Open displays of affection help to sell their story.

“It was the balcony, wasn’t it?” Georgia asks, drawing the Winchesters’ attention.

Sam frowns. “The balcony?”

“You were in there for so long, I thought you must’ve fallen in love with that balcony.”

“Oh,” Sam quickly adjusts his expression. “Of course, it’s beautiful. Kind of a unique room, isn’t it? That wallpaper though…”

“Hideous, I know,” Georgia admits, “but an original feature. According to one of the historians I consulted, the wallpaper was likely picked out by Mr. Frederick Calhoun himself. That room would’ve been the original nursery. I suppose it’s not to everyone’s tastes,” she adds, clearly referring to the Benbows’ decision to place Lourdes in another room.

Dean and Sam share a look, Georgia already moving further down the hall.

“Are you—” Dean starts to ask, but Sam cuts him off.

“Later,” he whispers, stepping out of Dean’s hold. He reaches back and squeezes Dean’s hand before following the sound of Georgia’s voice.

“Are you okay?” Dean rushes through the question as soon as they’re alone in the Impala. The dust kicked up by Georgia’s white Mercedes when she pulled out is just beginning to settle.

“Dean—”

“Don’t you dare tell me nothing happened. I saw what you looked like when you walked out of that room.”

Sam relents after a deep breath, settling back against the seat as Dean steers towards the main road. “It wasn’t a picnic or anything, but I’m fine, Dean. I swear. But I don’t think that’s the case with Sayuri.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That room…” Out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees Sam shudder. “It was fucking creepy, man.”

Dean wants to ask. Based on his own experience, he’s afraid of what Sam would tell him.

“Did you notice the floors when you were in there?” Sam is asking. “They were scuffed and worn down, but not all over. Just around the outside of the room, against the walls, as if someone was shuffling around the room on their knees, over and over and over again.”

“Can’t say I was paying attention to the floor,” Dean mutters.

“I tried to get a closer look at the wallpaper, too. Looks like Sayuri is trying to rip the paper off the walls.” Sam’s voice is low and concerned. “It’s torn all along the baseboards. Some spots are really shredded.”

Dean sighs. “She’s getting worse.”

“Or Emma’s getting more powerful,” Sam suggests, rubbing his palms on his pants. “We know whatever’s going on is centered in that room. Maybe there’s something about the wallpaper, if Sayuri’s trying to get behind it.”

“Remember what Georgia said about it being the nursery? If Emma’s baby died in that room, too, it’s no wonder she went crazy in there.”

“But how the hell do we stop her?” Sam ponders out loud. “We don’t even know if there’s a body to salt and burn.”

Dean gazes through the windshield, dappled sunlight filtering down through the oak trees, as a plan forms in his mind.

“I think I know someone we can ask.”

Midnight finds the Winchesters in a familiar position: attempting to disturb human remains.

The small, private cemetery at the far reaches of the original Nine Oaks plantation is quiet, just like the first time Sam and Dean trekked out here. The humid, spring air sticks to their skin, no breeze to speak of. Dean stays close to Sam as they step carefully towards Irene Grantham’s half-dug grave, their bags filled with weapons and plenty of rock salt, just in case.

If Emma’s becoming stronger, her reach could extend this far from the manor. The Winchesters aren’t taking any chances.

They stop beside Irene’s headstone, waiting in the darkness. Sam’s flashlight swings over the nearby graves, barely penetrating the thick shadows of the trees.

“What now?”

Dean drops his bag. Being here does _not_ bring back pleasant memories.

“Guess we start digging again.”

Fortunately for their backs, digging turns out to be unnecessary. As soon as Dean picks up the shovel, Sam nudges his shoulder and points to the gray mists slowly unfolding across the grounds. Looks like Irene isn’t going to stand them up. She steps out of the low fog, mists clinging to her tattered, blood-stained skirts.

As soon as Dean sees her, he knows the situation is worse than they thought. She looks bad—and being that she’s dead, it was already pretty awful—but tonight she appears more transparent, less focused. It’s as if she’s being drained.

“I knew you couldn’t help me.” Her voice is heavy, full of sorrow. “Why did you return?”

Sam answers. “Because we need you to help us, now. We know about Emma—”

An icy gust of wind passes through the cemetery, and it takes Dean a few seconds to realize it’s coming from Irene: the sensation of pure terror.

“Your spirit was already here when she arrived,” Dean says carefully. The last thing he wants to do is spook their ghost. Talk about irony. “You must know more about her.”

“We need anything you can tell us. Anything that could help us stop her.”

Irene turns in Sam’s direction, her gaze distant and empty. “You cannot stop her, she’s become too strong.” Her sigh sends another chill through the cemetery. “I tried, I did. In the beginning, when she learned to manipulate anyone who moved into the manor, I thought I could ease her madness.”

“What really happened to Emma?” Dean asks, stepping into a narrow beam of moonlight. Sam moves with him. “You must know what made her snap.”

Irene’s form wavers and dims. Dean wonders if it’s a sign of Emma getting stronger or her own melancholy.

“I used to watch her from time to time, caring for that man’s children. I missed my own family,” she admits. “But that _man_ mistreated her.” The loathing in Irene’s voice hits Dean like a hail stone.

“You mean Albert Calhoun?”

Irene’s anger snuffs out most of the remaining moonlight like an ominous cloud, only their flashlights left to pierce the darkness.

“He was a monster,” she curses. “He never loved her. He refused to marry her, even after she gave birth to _his_ child. Making matters worse, he wouldn’t acknowledge her son. The Calhouns couldn’t have a scandal like that.”

So Bennett’s instincts were spot-on, Dean reluctantly admits. Emma Summerlin was driven mad by the callous treatment from the men around her.

“When her baby died, that man offered no comfort. I watched, silent and unseen, as she lost herself to grief like I’d never seen. I had no power then,” Irene tells them, her anger beginning to withdraw. “I could not reveal myself. Perhaps I could’ve stopped her…”

Dean doesn’t think anyone, corporeal or otherwise, could have saved Emma Summerlin. Albert Calhoun’s ill-treatment sealed her fate along with his own.

“She lost her humanity that night,” Irene says to her rapt audience of two. “She killed that man when the rage descended upon her… but when she killed his children, there was no returning from that place.”

Dean understands how Emma’s ghost became so strong, so malicious. Albert got what was coming to him, but murdering innocent children condemned her soul. So much darkness from a single act, and it has poisoned Nine Oaks ever since.

“Her pain lingered.” Irene drifts past her own headstone, fingers passing through it. “She wanted others to know her suffering. The women who came to the manor became her victims, trapped by her wrath and living their worst nightmares until they, too, were driven mad. They took their own lives in horror and regret, but there was still no peace for them. Emma drained their strength until they were little more than whispers, held prisoner.”

Irene’s spirit is as transparent as the mists surrounding her, the tale taking its toll.

“I tried to warn the family living in the manor, but Emma was much stronger. When she realized I was there, she banished me from the house when she could not control me.”

From that point on, Irene could only watch from the grounds, unable to do anything more than warn those who moved in. She was no match for Emma’s fury.

Irene is fading quickly, aimless and weary. Sam steps forward, one more crucial question yet to be answered.

“How did Emma die?”

“It was terrible,” Irene replies. “The nursery was covered in blood, and she stood in the middle of it all, unable to escape what she had done.” Her form flickers as she says quietly, “She didn’t end it quickly. She threw herself against the walls, crying and wailing. Harder and harder, her blood and bone mixing with theirs, until she broke her own neck.”

Dean’s stomach turns, a sour taste creeping up the back of his throat. Even Sam is affected, his cheeks and lips turning pale.

To end her life so brutally, Emma must have really wanted to die. After killing Albert’s children, what choice did she have?”

“We’ll end this,” Dean swears. “Emma won’t hurt anyone else.”

Irene lowers her head. “I pray you can,” she says sadly. “I’m afraid I can do no more. 

“Once Emma’s gone, you’ll be free,” Sam offers, inadequate comfort for all Irene has been made to witness. “You can be with your family again.”

With a last lingering look at her parents’ graves, Irene finally recedes into the mist, leaving Sam and Dean alone in the dark cemetery with new questions to work through.

“What do you wanna bet old man Calhoun covered up most of the blood and damage in the nursery with that ugly-as-fuck wallpaper?”

Dean walks shoulder to shoulder with Sam, making their way back to the Impala after restoring Irene’s gravesite. It was the least they could do.

“It kept her spirit in the house,” Sam says, “but maybe it also prevented her from doing anything worse.”

Dean scowls. “Worse than promoting murder-suicides?”

“Like possessing someone instead of manipulating them.”

Stopping beside the car, it hits him.

“So if Sayuri is out of control enough to start ripping up the wallpaper—”

Sam nods, moonlight reflecting off the dark paint of the Impala’s hood to catch on his jaw and cheekbones.

“We might have less time than we thought.”

With their new priority being to find a way to remove Emma’s spirit and cleanse the manor before she can claim another victim, Sam and Dean enlist Edmond’s help.

“Stay in the car though, okay?” Sam reminds him, his cell pressed to his ear as he walks back and forth across the bedroom floor. “Don’t try to approach the manor, no matter what. Just watch the place and call me immediately if you see or hear anything strange.”

He hangs up a moment later, tossing the phone on the bed where it lands beside Dean’s knee.

“Edmond said he’s willing to stay there all night if we need him to,” Sam tells him, rubbing the side of his face and blinking slowly. The dark circles beneath his eyes probably match Dean’s, and when Dean yawns, it’s contagious.

This hunt is pushing their limits. So much for working their way back up to the tough stuff. Dean doesn’t mind the exhaustion, though. It sucks, but it feels right. He’s doing the job he’s meant to do, working alongside Sam. It was about time the Winchesters got back to their true purpose.

“We’ll be useless if don’t get some shut-eye.”

Sam sighs. “I know. I’ve been wracking my brain for a good banishing spell, but—”

“But nothing,” Dean cuts in. “We’ll figure it out, Sam.”

Reversing their roles from two nights ago, Dean ushers Sam to the bathroom and throws him a change of clothes. While he washes up, Dean carries a load of books, theirs and Jocelyn’s, along with Sam’s laptop up to the bedroom, laying it all out. If Sam insists on work, he’ll be doing it in bed.

Sam relents as soon as he sees his research piled up.

“You win,” he grumbles, settling in and grabbing his computer, brushing his hair out of his face. He’s regained most of his color since they returned to the house.

He glances up at Dean. “Staying or leaving?”

Worn out, Dean drops onto the empty side of the mattress. There’s a question that’s been plaguing him all day.

“What happened to you in that room?”

Sam’s eyes drop to his lap, avoiding Dean’s gaze. “I told you I was fine.”

“I need to know,” Dean says. “Did Emma get in your head, too?”

“She tried. It hit me when I was checking the balcony doors.”

Dean already regrets what he’s about to ask. It's like he’s obsessed. “What’d you feel?”

Predictably, Sam raises an eyebrow. Talking about feelings is way out of the zone they stick to.

“I know,” Dean mutters. “Just tell me, ‘cause it doesn’t seem like you were affected like I was. Did it even bother you?”

“Of course it did.” Sam keeps his voice soft and level. Setting the laptop aside, he angles his body towards Dean, the clean scent of his soap becoming stronger. “If you really want to know, she made me think about you, Dean, reliving every single time I’ve nearly lost you, and coming up with all the ways I _could_ lose you. To a hunt, to Heaven, or to someone else—”

He stops. Dean’s left hanging, leaning further into Sam’s space than he realized. Pulling back, he watches Sam’s expression tighten, emotions retreating behind his golden-green eyes.

“Emma thought she could torture me by making me think I’d keep losing you, no matter what I did. Which is total crap. I mean, how many ghosts, creatures, demons, and angels have told me the same damn thing?”

The list runs through Dean’s mind on a fast track, everyone and everything that has attempted to force them apart.

“My point is,” Sam continues, “it’s been twelve years since we got back on the road together. We’ve already spent a lifetime apart if you count our stays in Hell.” That earns Sam a wry grin. “And screw it, that was enough. Each time we take on the worst Heaven or Hell can throw at us, we come out the other side. After Amara, I decided it was my turn to determine where my life would go. I’m sick of repeating the same patterns, Dean, and a ghost like Emma isn’t going to ruin that. We’ve been through too damn much.

“So yeah, Emma tried, and it freaked me out because I can’t stand _anything_ telling me I’m going to lose you, but it didn’t bother me because _I know it’s not true_.”

Sam is too close, and Dean wants to believe the impassioned words coming out of his mouth, wants to imagine there’s a future where they’re no longer pieces on a chessboard: knights treated like pawns. Then he remembers he’s on borrowed time. The emptiness in his soul is…

_Huh_. That’s different. Dean concentrates on the ache and finds the pain bearable. Maybe it’s nothing, or maybe he’s numb from what this hunt has forced him to endure, or perhaps it’s the result of spending so much time with Sam. Whatever the reason, the void feels more like a bruise than an open wound.

“Dean?”

“Sorry, I was just thinking,” Dean covers. “I’m glad Emma’s lobotomy didn’t work on you. At least one of us will make it out of this thing still sane. As sane as when we came in, anyway.”

Dean bolts for the bedroom door, muttering a nonsense excuse about getting more books, before Sam calls him on his bizarre behavior. If he stays… well, he can’t stay.

If Sam doesn’t want to repeat the past, the least Dean can do is ensure he doesn’t fall prey to temptation. And Sam, sitting up in the bed they shared just two night ago, lips parted and cheeks flushed, is the portrait of carnal sin. Everything Dean wants.

The Rolling Stones had it right when they sang _you can’t always get what you want_ , but as long as Sam sticks with him, Dean has what he needs.


	7. Chapter 7

“What if we use that cleansing spell Garth sent us after he took care of that haunted beach house up in Maine?”

Sam shakes his head without looking up from his computer. “Not strong enough.”

“It worked back in Boulder,” Dean points out.

“That was one ghost, and it hadn’t been around as long as Emma. If she’s draining power from the other women she’s trapped, then she’s way too powerful for that spell.”

Dean thinks about it, then concedes, turning to the latest in a thick pile of books Sam wants him to go through. 

They’re on a quest for a heavy-duty banishing spell, something that’ll take care of Emma once and for all. With no idea what became of Emma’s body, a salt and burn is out of the question. According to Irene, Emma may have left a good deal of herself behind in the nursery, anyway. The mental picture has Dean cringing.

They’ve been trading ideas since their first cups of coffee. Sam checked in with Edmond before getting down to business, relaying that Edmond planned on getting a few hours of sleep before coming over to help. Dean reads through books and handwritten notes, taking advantage of the resources in Jocelyn’s library, while Sam works his magic with the computer, searching hidden networks and occult pages within the darknet. 

Sam had learned so much from Charlie in such a short time. What would she say to the Winchesters now if she was still around, if she could see what they’re going through? Would she provide calm, level-headed advice? Probably not at first. Dean figures she’d slap him on the back of the head and tell him to get over his shit. He never worked up the nerve to tell her about him and Sam (somehow, he thinks she knew), but he has no doubt she would have employed her hacking skills to book them the honeymoon suite at the closest five-star hotel.

“Hey! Did you hear what I said?” Dean startles. Sam rolls his eyes. “What about using the same ritual we tried in Reno a couple years back? I know it didn’t end up being a ghost, but it was pretty strong stuff.”

“I kinda think we need more than a spell,” Dean tells him, stretching his spine. They’ve been at this for hours. “I’m all for torching the place.”

“We’re not burning down the manor, Dean.”

He shrugs. “It’d work.”

“Maybe if there wasn’t a family living there,” Sam says. “We’ve destroyed a lot of property in our careers, but this would be excessive.”

Plus, they haven’t exactly been keeping a low profile: meeting with a real estate agent, scheduling a viewing, introducing themselves to Sayuri and Anna. The Winchesters are all over this thing.

“We’ve gotta destroy the wallpaper, at least.”

Sam agrees with him on that. “From what Irene said, there are gonna be pieces of her all over the back of that stuff.” He shudders. “What an awful way to go.”

Dean flips the book closed. Another dead end. He’s about to grab the next one off the pile when he notices Sam watching him, a hint of something fond and distracting in his gaze.

“What?”

Sam shakes his head. “Nothing. I mean, about what I told you last night...”

“Right now, Sam? Seriously?” Dean waves his hand over the stacks on the kitchen table. “You’re the one who told me to go through these.”

“I know, but I just thought you should know—”

“Less talking,” Dean says, exasperated. He reaches for another book. “More reading.”

Dean knew he’d regret opening this door. That’s the third time Sam has brought up their care-and-share from the night before, when Dean’s insecurities got the best of him. So far, he’s been able to dodge Sam’s attempts at further explanation, but his luck won’t hold forever. Talking about it means Dean would have to admit what he needs to survive after what Amara did to him. Namely, his brother. Dean’s selfish, not cruel; Sam’s better off not knowing.

Talking can wait until after Emma’s been dealt with.

“Hey, I think I’ve got something!”

“A spell?” Dean asks, standing slowly to work out the kinks in his knees. He comes up behind Sam at the counter and glances at the screen over his shoulder. 

“Kind of,” Sam says, clicking not on a website, but on an email. “I sent out a few emails when I woke up, seeing if anyone could help us out.”

“Who responded?”

Sam grins. “Cesar, actually.”

“I thought we decided not to drag them back into the game.” Cesar and Jesse Cuevas achieved what few hunters ever got: the chance to retire in (mostly) one piece. Happy and settled. Dean’s a little jealous of what they have, but that doesn’t mean he wants to ruin it.

“I was looking for information,” Sam reminds him, “not assistance. We’d be crazy not to take advantage of their knowledge. Hunting in Mexico, they must’ve come across a lot of different creatures.”

He’s right, of course. Asking for help makes sense.

“So what’d Cesar have to say?”

Sam shifts to the side, giving Dean more room to see the computer. “Take a look at this…”

Cesar has provided the specifics to a cleansing he and Jesse got from a fellow _cazador_ down in Mexico when they teamed up to cleanse a small village under siege from multiple ghosts.

“Sounds like it was bad,” Dean notes, reading through Cesar’s message.

“The village had a pretty bloody history just like Nine Oaks. Left behind more than one nasty spirit hell-bent on vengeance.”

“So what’s the spell?”

Sam continues reading and passing along the details. In his email, Cesar lists the various ingredients for the purification ritual they used along with an old Mexican spell meant to increase the ritual’s potency.

“How’s your Spanish?”

Sam throws him a classic fed-up expression. “ _No te preocupes, todo esta bajo control_.”

“Point taken,” Dean says, wiping that look off Sam’s face with a gentle nudge to his shoulder. “Guess this ritual is worth a try. It seems strong enough. I know we’ve got at least a few of these ingredients in the trunk,” he adds, scanning Cesar’s list. “Maybe Edmond can help us with the rest.”

“A hunter like Jocelyn must have had a stash somewhere,” Sam says. “He might know where it’s hidden.”

Plan in place, Dean leans back and looks at Sam. “We’re taking care of this tonight. We can’t leave the Benbows in that house with Emma any longer.”

Sam meets his gaze, confident and sincere when he says, “I’m with you.”

“Sure you boys don’t need an extra hand tonight?”

Edmond adjusts his glasses as he watches them pack the Impala’s trunk with everything they need to perform the purification ritual at Nine Oaks.

“You’ve already gone above and beyond,” Sam assures him, double checking the small bags containing the mixture of herbs, bone, feathers, and small scrolls with spell runes sketched out in Sam’s blood. “We owe you big-time.”

“I’m just glad I could be of some help.”

“Your aunt would be proud,” Dean says, “carrying on her legacy.”

The southerner looks away, the praise bringing tender emotions to the surface. Dean hopes that this experience, learning more about his aunt and her family’s line of work, helps ease the pain of her passing. She certainly had a hand in raising a kind, strong man.

Edmond was more than willing to assist Sam gather what was needed for Cesar’s ritual. When he showed up at the house early in the afternoon, Dean and Sam had procured about half of what they needed from their small stash kept in the Impala. After hearing their plan, Edmond snapped his fingers and led the Winchesters outside, where they followed him to a sturdy, locked shed behind the house. Edmond pulled out a set of brass keys, jangling the ring until he found the one he was looking for.

“Robbie and Jocelyn made sure I knew this shed was off limits when I was a boy,” he told them, amused by their awed expressions. “Naturally, my curiosity won out. I figure you might find a few more things on your list in here.”

The shed contained shelves, cabinets, and chests full of labeled bottles, tins, and jars, dried herbs and delicate animal bones packed away with various minerals and stones.

Dean glanced in Sam’s direction, both of them silently acknowledging how damn lucky they were to discover a stash like this _literally_ in their backyard.

With Dean and Edmond’s assistance, Sam pulled together the rest of the necessary ingredients. Small chips of clear quartz, downy white feathers, rain collected on a new moon, willow ash. And while he prepared everything for the ritual, with Edmond eagerly watching each meticulous step, Dean checked their weapons and restocked their bags. Plenty of rock salt, shot guns and ammo, lighter fluid and matches.

Dean was going to burn that fucking wallpaper tonight, no matter what his brother said.

Now, the sun is sinking quickly, daylight giving way to the vibrant, warm tones of a Lowcountry sunset. Sam reassures Edmond that they’ll call if they need back-up.

“Hopefully we get lucky,” Dean says. “Place the bags, add Sam’s little spell, and get out before anyone even knows we were there.”

Edmond gives them a hopeful smile. “Just make sure y’all come back, you hear me?”

Dean and Sam look at each other, then nod. Hand on the Impala’s roof, Dean promises, “Nothing to worry about. We’ll be back before you know it.”

Sayuri stands in a trance, absorbed in the sounds around her. Even the faintest noises rage in her ears: the hollow drone of the air conditioning, agitated insects mourning the loss of daylight, the drum beat of her own pulse.

Strange, she's never heard it this loud before. Blood pounding through the veins at her wrists, her temples, behind her eyes.

Nighttime finds her in the study, staring at the wallpaper and waiting for its secrets to be revealed. She's close now. If she could just see beyond the tangled vines, past the limp, broken bodies of all the women who weren't strong enough, she would know where to begin. 

It's the only way to make things right, to show Max that she's not crazy. The woman Sayuri is looking for… She's seen everything Sayuri has been through: her husband’s dismissal, Anna’s attempts to win her daughter away from her. The woman knows why Sayuri's mind no longer feels like her own. But Max will never believe her while the woman remains trapped. Sayuri can take care of that. He needs to _see_ , so she knows what she has to do. He won't be able to blame the paranoia, the depression, for her behavior anymore. 

Unlike the others, Sayuri is strong enough to do what they couldn't. They must know it, their mangled bodies, sickly pale and empty, gold eyes, swaying away from the sight of her.

She tightens her hand around the knife, its blade clean and sharp. Taken from the kitchen, it was the largest knife in the butcher’s block. She's going to need it; the paper is thick and it clings to the wall behind as if it was adhered with something stronger than glue. 

Aware of even the faintest noise, Sayuri doesn't miss the sound of footsteps creeping closer. Someone treading lightly outside the door. Hesitating, coming to stop her. But she won't be stopped. Tonight, the nightmare comes to an end.

She feels the door open, air brushing against her heated skin. It doesn't matter who has come to interfere—they are too late.

Tonight, she'll finally break free.

Nine Oaks is eerily quiet as Sam and Dean approach the manor on foot, the Impala hidden in its usual place.

Sam stops at the tree line. “We have to place the bags before we use the spell,” he whispers, “one at each cardinal point around the house.”

“Do we have to bury them?”

“They need to be touching the structure.” Sam refers back to the notes in Cesar’s email. “It should be enough.”

Dean hopes he’s right. He knows better than to pour blind faith into rituals like this.

They approach carefully, staying out of sight. The shadows are thick and there’s a haze hanging over the property, courtesy of the high humidity. Despite the late hour, there are lights on in the manor. To Dean’s growing unease, he sees an ominous yellow glow coming through the open balcony doors.

“Let’s get this over with,” he hisses to Sam. “You go one way, I’ll take the other.”

Sam opens his mouth to respond, but whatever he’s about to say is obliterated by a bone-chilling cry of pain. He immediately steps beyond the security of the trees and turns back to Dean.

“That came from _inside_ the house!”

Dean is right there with him, rushing forward.

“So much for luck,” he mutters as they hurry towards the manor, adrenaline feeding into his senses.

The side door is closer. Sam and Dean run through the garden, up an uneven stone path, only to find the door locked. Without hesitation, Dean takes a deep breath and braces himself, about to kick it down with his right leg, when Sam grabs his shoulder.

“Dude, your hip,” Sam reminds him, before raising his leg and kicking the old (and flimsy, in Dean’s opinion) door straight off its hinges. “Let’s go, old man.”

Dean scowls and vows to revisit that taunt.

They’re in a large utility room, a sleek, modern washer and dryer set tucked against the original plantation cabinetry. Frantic sobbing and the sound of wooden chairs scraping haphazardly against the floor leads them towards the kitchen they toured only days before, weapons at the ready. The sight that greets them is bloody and not what Dean expected.

“Oh my fucking god—fuck, fuck, _stop_.” Anna curses through her sobs, a thick towel pressed against the outside of her forearm, once white cotton now heavy with blood from the long cut beneath the material. Dean can see smaller nicks and cuts across her hands. Whatever happened to cause the injury, she had at least tried to defend herself.

Anna’s usually cheerful face is shining with pain and sweat, her cheeks pale and her hair in disarray. There’s blood on her gray jeans, some spattered on her bare feet.

“Anna?”

She whips around at the sound of Dean’s voice, pupils wide with fear.

“What the—” She blinks through blurry eyes. “Wait, you? What are you doing here?”

She’s shaking badly, red smears covering the kitchen counter she’s leaning against, stools pushed aside.

“We’re here to help, I promise.” Sam advances cautiously. “What happened?”

Somewhere on the floor above them, a fist pounds on an unyielding door, muffled shouts echoing through the manor. Three pairs of eyes look up.

“Anna—” This time it’s Dean trying to settle the Benbow’s nanny. “You need to tell us what happened so we can help, okay? That’s why we’re here. We’re not looking to buy this place. We know there’s something going on.”

He watches the emotions flash across her tear-stained face, the same sequence of fear, uncertainty, and acceptance he’s seen in countless victims over the years as they convince themselves that they have no choice but to trust the Winchesters.

“S-Sayuri,” she stammers. “She—she came at me with a knife.” Dean sees the whites of her eyes. “Oh god, _why did she have a knife_?”

Another shout, a man’s voice edged with desperation. Dean knows they’re almost out of time.

“Did Sayuri say anything to you?”

A fresh wave of shock hits Anna. Sam is at her side in seconds. Carefully taking her arm and checking the towel before visually scanning for other serious wounds. He looks over at Dean and nods.

Knowing she’ll be okay, Dean presses. “Anna, listen to me. This is important. What did she say?”

Anna’s voice is weak, threaded with pain. “I went up to ask her about Lourdes’ formula. I didn’t even get the chance to _say_ anything.” Her long inhale rattles in her wet throat. “Sayuri looked at me and said I was ‘too late,’ that I’d never ‘take them away’ from her now.”

Emma’s got her claws in deep, Dean realizes.

“Was she talking about Lourdes and Max?” Anna gasps. “Max! He went up there! She chased me out of her office, and he ran up there. What if she—”

“We’ll get Max,” Sam assures before she can hyperventilate. “What about the baby?”

As if he’s said the magic word, Anna focuses on Sam’s face, a little life seeping back into her gaze. “Lourdes is in her nursery.”

Grabbing another towel from the floor—Anna must have pulled them all out in a frenzy—Dean helps her away from the counter.

“Go to Lourdes’ room and lock the door. Only open it for Max or one of us. You hear me?”

Spurred by his decisive tone, Anna stumbles off towards the nursery. Sam and Dean watch until she steps out of view.

“The cut wasn’t too deep,” Sam tells him. “We need to get Max.”

Dean follows Sam into the foyer and up the stairs, pressure weighing heavier on his shoulders with every step. Sam runs on, unaffected. When they hit the landing, they find Max all but throwing himself at the study door, calling out to his wife. The doctor, who Dean’s only seen in his hospital staff photo and a few of his wife's posts, pounds on the wood with his fists, knuckles red and raw. There are streaks of blood on the door. It’s difficult to say whether they came from Anna or Max.

He must see Sam and Dean out of the corner of his eye, surprise sending him staggering back into the wall with a loud _thunk_. Sweat has soaked through his shirt under his arms and down the center of his chest, and his ginger hair is mussed, matted across his forehead.

“Who the hell are you?” he screams, voice hoarse. “What are you doing in my house?”

“We’re here to help.” Again, Sam takes the lead. “We’ve already seen Anna—”

Max cuts him off. “Is she okay?”

“She’s hurt and needs your help,” Dean tells him. “She’s with your daughter.”

Max looks between the Winchesters and the door, eyes bright and frantic, torn between listening and continuing his useless assault on solid wood. Dean can’t blame him.

“Let us handle this.” Dean tries to appeal to sense. “We know what we’re up against.”

“But that’s my wife in there! She’s going to hurt herself!”

“Hey!” Sam slams his hand against the wall, shocking Max into silence. Fed up with wasting precious time, he says, “Anna needs a doctor so get your ass down there and help her!”

If Dean wasn’t close to buckling under the weight of Emma’s power, he would be so turned on by Sam’s show of force. Because _damn_ , he’s missed this side of Sam. Standing tall, not to mention carrying a sawed-off shotgun, Sam cuts an imposing figure. Max finally listens to reason.

“Just-just help her, okay? I don’t…”

“Go!” Sam barks, and they both step aside as Max rushes past, his footfalls uneven as he clunks down the stairs.

Sam looks at the door. In the absence of the noise created by Max’s fists and feet, they’re able to hear the wails coming from within. Low, pained cries that speak to Dean of uncounted horrors: the sad, tragic tale of Emma Summerlin’s short life.

Dean realizes they’ll have to split up. “You go place the bags,” he says, turning to Sam. “You’re the one who knows the spell.”

Sam shakes his head. “No way, I’m not leaving you.”

“I’ll stop Sayuri from hurting herself or anyone else,” he insists, “and I can buy you some time.”

“Dean—”

“I can handle this, Sam!”

There is a fire in Sam’s eyes when he steps up close to Dean, and that’s the last thing he knows before his world breaks apart.

Dean has kissed Sam a thousand times in his mind, each one evaporating into nothing but a false memory. He hasn’t experienced the real thing in fifteen years. He’d starved himself, adapting to the hunger until he couldn’t feel it anymore.

When Sam kisses him now, time doesn’t stop, it _shatters_. It’s a brutal kiss, hard and pressing. Sam’s lips demand to be taken seriously, and it hurts for how good it feels. Dean is grateful because pain lingers longer in memory than pleasure. He can do no more than withstand the kiss, leaning into Sam’s chest, before he remembers why they’re here. There’s no time to examine what’s happening in his chest, the collision of emotions creating a warmth the likes of which he hasn’t felt in much too long a time.

He pushes Sam away at the same time his fingers curl in the cotton of Sam’s shirt, letting his brother know that this is far from over.

“Go,” he whispers, barely able to believe what his lips, still stinging, are saying.

Sam covers Dean’s hand with his own and squeezes. “I’ll hurry.”

Dean shoves him back. “You’d better.”

With a last look, Sam hefts his bag further onto his shoulder and rushes downstairs. Alone outside the study, Dean braces himself and grabs the doorknob. It gives easily. Dean swallows and tries to keep his hands from shaking. For whatever reason, Emma is _welcoming_ him. Not a good sign.

He steps into the room, shotgun at the ready, and comes face to face with something out of a nightmare.

The wallpaper is _moving_

Everywhere Dean looks, he can see the women trapped in their two-dimensional prison—more victims than he and Sam knew about. Their gaunt, yellow faces plead silently for help, limbs torn to shreds by the thorned vines that crisscross the walls. Dean has never seen anything like it.

The wailing is louder now, and Dean spins to find Sayuri crouched in the corner of the room. On the floor beside her, a long kitchen knife lies amidst the blood spatter, blade glinting in the amber light. The heat in the room is almost unbearable, so unlike the deep, unshakable chill that normally accompanies restless spirits. Emma’s anger burns brightly.

Sayuri is ripping paper from the wall, a pile of scraps behind her, moaning in pain as the thick strips cut her fingers, adding more blood to what’s already dripping onto the floor. Dean watches in horror as the once happy young mother tears into the next piece, uncovering gruesome, smeared stains, so dark they're almost black.

By simply hiding the evidence of Emma’s demise, how many women, children, and men had Frederick Calhoun condemned to violent deaths?

Dean’s stomach overturns, and it’s only by the narrowest of margins that he keeps himself from retching.

The wailing suddenly stops. Sayuri is looking straight at Dean, her eyes stormy. Gone is the nervous, muted woman Dean met earlier in the week. In her place is a woman overflowing with an anger and pain not her own, tightly wound and ready to explode.

“You,” she hisses. “I knew you’d come back to take this from me.”

“You don’t need to do this, Sayuri.” Dean appeals to her. “Just get out of here and you won’t need to feel like this anymore.”

Her mouth twists into a terrible facsimile of a smile. “You’re too late.”

Dean goes to move forward but an invisible force holds him in place. He feels the wave cresting, trying to pull him under. He wishes Sam was here, a rock to help him withstand the full breadth of Emma’s power.

“I have to do this,” Sayuri is muttering, crazed and trembling. “Then you’ll all understand.”

“She’s using you!” Dean argues, knowing full well what Emma wants her victims to comprehend. “You can’t let her out!”

The headache is building, a vise around his temples. Emma wants to drown him out. Across the room, Sayuri runs her hand reverently across the hideous wallpaper, oblivious to the specters struggling to warn her away. Sayuri is beyond their help, hellbent on releasing Emma. But all Dean needs to do is stall her long enough for Sam to place the bags and complete the purification ritual.

“ _Help me, Dean._ ”

The words creep across Dean’s skin, raising fine hairs in their wake. Forcing his gaze to the left, Dean’s heart turns to stone. Within the wallpaper, a figure steps into the light, more solid than the others. Her skull is cracked open, revealing a black void underneath, and her neck is bent at an unnatural angle, head rolling to one side. The dress she’s wearing is covered in rotting mustard stains, vines shriveling and curling away as she comes forward.

Emma Summerlin.

“ _Release me, and I can help you, Dean._ ” Her voice is like the wallpaper she haunts, dry and brittle.

“I’m good, thanks,” Dean says, gritting his teeth. Emma’s coal black eyes are fixated on him, ignoring Sayuri completely. Small favors, he supposes.

“ _I know you, Dean_ ,” she rasps. “ _You and I are the same._ ”

He scowls. “Doubt it.”

The women in the wallpaper behind Sayuri are huddled together, recoiling at the sight of their tormentor. Dean’s only plan now is to keep Emma’s attention away from Sayuri, buy Sam more time.

“ _You know what it is to be not enough_ ,” she tells him. “ _To feel your inadequacies each and every day._ ”

“Not really a problem for me.”

She doesn’t listen to him, looming larger as she tests the limits of the wallpaper. Sayuri didn’t have enough time to tear it all down. More than half of the revolting paper remains.

“ _I was used, consumed_ ”—her voice gains an edge—“ _finally turned away. You know what that’s like, Dean. Sam left you behind despite what you felt, did he not_?”

It stings. The longer Emma talks, the worse Dean feels. Like a buzzing that rises and rises, starting at the base of his spine and climbing, cutting Dean off from his lower body.

“You don’t know anything about me.”

He’s wrong about that, of course. Emma slashed him open the first time, reopening old wounds and leaving him to bleed out.

“ _My love was not enough for Albert. Yours won’t be enough for Sam_ ,” she taunts, glaring at Dean with that awful tilt to her head.

Grimacing through his pain, Dean says, “I’m not gonna let you hurt anyone else.”

“ _I haven’t hurt anyone_.” Her voice crackles like a roaring fire, yellow and golds and reds jumping around her. “ _I merely show them what they cannot see for themselves_.”

“Manipulating them and forcing them to commit murder.”

From the grin she’s wearing, the idea delights Emma, her spirit well past the point of no return.

“ _You’re empty, Dean, but you’re so much more than any of_ them.” Her onyx eyes dart to her terrified audience as they shrink further into the shadows, Sayuri drained of color and slumped over, watching Dean battle Emma. “ _I don’t want someone weak to release me. I want you. I can keep you from succumbing to that void. Don’t you want to live? Without me, you’ll remain empty._ ”

Summoning her power, Emma unleashes herself on Dean. His blood barrels through his veins, pulse skipping too fast to measure. Emma reaches deep into his chest, searching, digging, pushing towards the void. And Dean knows he’s helpless to stop her from finding a way in.

Except, she can’t. Because somehow, by some miracle, Dean isn’t empty anymore.

The words Sam used to fight Emma’s influence come rushing back to Dean. _I know it’s not true._ Everything Emma’s saying, the emotions she chooses as her weapons, are nothing but ruse and distraction.

Dean’s soul is no longer a void. He can still feel the pressure of Sam’s lips on his only moments ago, the resolve in his brother’s gaze. Emma is lying through her decaying teeth. Dean has Sam, and that love is more than enough. Sam is in his DNA, blood calling to blood.

With that comes another instinctive realization: Amara didn’t carve out the void, Sam did. It’s been there since he left for Stanford and took a massive piece of Dean with him. Amara found it and exploited his weakness for her own gain, but it was always Sam’s.

Just like that, Dean’s no longer in agony as Emma loses her hold. Dean takes advantage, finally able to move towards Sayuri, intent on getting her away from harm.

“ _You’re still mine, Dean_!” Emma shrieks, the wallpaper rippling like waves in a storm.

Unfortunately, Dean underestimated the influence Emma has over Sayuri. Before he can reach her, Sayuri springs forward, knife stained with Anna’s blood gripped in her hand. She slashes awkwardly at Dean, out of her mind. Dean dodges and deflects as best he can with the aftermath of Emma’s presence ringing in his ears. Rage makes Sayuri dangerous, and Dean doesn’t want to hurt her.

“I need to know,” she cries frantically. “Let me release her! It should be me!”

Sayuri stumbles, providing Dean an opening to grab her thin wrist, squeezing until the knife drops with a clatter. She continues to struggle, incoherently raving about Max and Anna and betrayal, forcing Dean to tighten his grip. He sees Emma moving between the strips of paper Sayuri couldn’t rip down, waiting for her chance.

It never comes.

The heat is sucked from the room in a rush, and Dean can finally take a deep, cool breath. In his arms, Sayuri goes still, baffled by the sudden shift. White light fills the room, banishing the shadows from Emma’s domain.

“ _You can free me, Dean_!” Emma pleads, clawing at the wallpaper from the other side as she tries to escape her prison. “ _It’s not too late_!”

Heavy footsteps outside the door signal Sam’s return. Dean spins, Sayuri no longer fighting his hold, and meets his brother’s stare. Sam is grinning.

“Yeah, it is,” Sam says, glancing down at the piece of paper in his hand before starting to read. Dean can’t follow most of the Spanish, but whatever he’s saying is having an effect. Emma writhes in the pure white light as if burned by its cool touch. The three of them can only watch as her spirit is consumed, twisting in on itself and fading away to nothing as Sam finishes reading the ritual Cesar provided.

And just like that, the room is quiet. Sam looks across the room, Dean following his gaze to see the other women fading the same way. Instead of struggling, they appear to welcome oblivion, disappearing quietly as if they were never there. Dean hopes they find peace, because he and Sam are _so_ not coming back to this house.

Sayuri collapses when Dean lets her go, the madness gone from her eyes. In two strides, Sam is at Dean’s side, catching him before he, too, slumps to the floor. He hadn’t realized how severely Emma drained him. Sam’s hands are gentle around his shoulders, stroking down his arm. Dean’s heart aches for a new reason, but he finally lets himself relax.

Outside, beneath the dense canopy on the avenue of oaks, a shining silver figure turns away from the manor. Irene Grantham glides away into the darkness, a smile on her translucent face as she bids farewell to Nine Oaks.

A moment later, she disappears.

“Do you think it’s over?”

Leaning against the Impala beside Dean, Sam nods. “That was a pretty serious spell. I don’t think Emma’s ever coming back.”

Together, they watch Max Benbow’s Range Rover drive off into the night, heading for his hospital downtown, Sayuri, Lourdes, and Anna in the car with him. Sam was right, Anna’s injuries weren’t life threatening, but Max was eager to get his family out of the house, filled with guilt and regret for not trusting his wife when things started to go wrong.

“It’s probably safe to come back if you want,” Sam had told the doctor as they helped the family into the car. Sayuri hadn’t spoken since Emma disappeared, numb from shock. Anna was taking it as well as she could, assuming responsibility for Lourdes when her mother could not.

“To hell with that,” Max had said. “We can’t be in that house anymore.”

“Where will you go?”

Max had sighed, drained and exhausted like the rest of them. “There are a hundred hotels around Charleston. I’m sure the hospital board owns one or two condos, too. Who cares where we go, as long as it’s not here.”

Silently, Dean agreed. You couldn’t pay him to set foot in Nine Oaks again.

They’d burned the wallpaper, just in case. Dean refused to let it stay there on the floor like a pile of dead weeds. Sam watched as he poured salt on the ragged strips, the remaining paper on the walls devoid of any figures or prying eyes. It was empty and flat, the spirits banished, but the room and the house will bear the scars for a long time to come, one being the blackened circle beneath the heap of burning wallpaper.

Now, soaking in the peace and quiet of a tranquil Southern night, Dean sighs.

“What happened up there, before…”

“Hey, Dean?” Sam slides closer, a long line of heat against Dean’s side. “Let’s get out of here, okay?”

Dean nods, insanely grateful. It’s the best thing he’s heard all night.

Back at Jocelyn’s house, Dean steps into the upstairs shower alone, tile walls warming quickly with the steam. He stands beneath the spray, senses heightened, and waits. Of course he's nervous. Sam kissed him, but that doesn't mean they are going back down this road, despite it being Dean’s most fervent hope.

And so there are no words for the way he feels when Sam's figure appears on the other side of the clouded glass door. The swooping sensation in his gut is familiar, however. Sam steps wordlessly into the shower, shutting them off from the rest of the world for the time being.

This used to be part of their routine whenever Dad left them alone, sharing the motel room shower as if it were their own little universe, a safe place where they could learn everything there was to know about each other’s bodies. Now, Dean is excited to have the chance to explore what has changed. 

Sam pulls Dean back against his chest, demonstrating the first and most obvious change: the last time they stood like this, Dean was taller than Sam by the barest of margins. He likes this arrangement, though. It's calming to have Sam behind him, bodies aligned from knees to shoulders, arousing to feel the swell of Sam's cock against his ass, not totally hard but getting there. Tension bleeds out of his frame as Sam runs his palms down Dean’s arms, chin coming to rest on Dean’s shoulder.

“Been a while,” Sam mutters, raising one of Dean’s hands and running his fingers over thick knuckles. 

“Too long.”

Dragging Sam into the shower started as Dean’s way of checking his little brother for injuries. Sam wasn't always honest with Dad about how rough training got, or how much he ached after his first few hunts. He'd skim over Sam's skin, searching out soreness and would-be bruises, soothing each with a kiss and a therapeutic touch.

Tonight, Sam takes that role, hands all over Dean with varying degrees of pressure. Hard when he grips the outside of Dean’s thigh, tips of his fingers digging into firm muscle. Thorough as he feels his way across Dean’s stomach and upper torso, ensuring Sayuri Benbow hadn't done any damage with the knife she wielded. Tender when his fingers tilt Dean’s chin, Sam's lips brushing the corner of his mouth.

A whisper when Sam asks, “Okay?”

A growl when Dean tells him, “Shut up and kiss me, Sam.”

From there, they are driven by a force they have no hope of controlling. Steam envelops their bodies, making Dean feel like soft hands are touching him all over when, in reality, Sam’s massive hands are wrapped around his back. Dean is unprepared for the way Sam’s strength affects him, the thought that Sam could take him however he wanted zipping straight down to Dean’s cock. Before Stanford, when Sam was half the size he is today, Dean naturally took the lead. He was gentle, but not always patient, their need for one another too great and the opportunities too few.

The intervening years, and all that’s taken place, have opened the door for a new dynamic. That’s an idea that leaves Dean delirious with want, aching in all the right ways.

They grind together, soap creating a frictionless slide between their bellies. Sam kisses him through a sheet of warm water, his tongue slipping in alongside Dean’s. There are long moments of breathlessness between deliberate strokes of a sure hand or the even bite of Sam’s teeth against Dean’s throat. Sam clearly remembers Dean’s sweet spots from when they were teenagers, exploiting that knowledge until Dean is rutting against his thigh, cock hard and eager.

Dean has spent years imagining scenarios like this one, turning memories into fantasies and revisiting countless nights hiding under the covers in anonymous motel rooms. He never forgot the things he learned. Sam isn’t the only one who can put that obsession to good use.

He fists one hand in Sam’s hair and kisses him hard, swallowing the moan he knows is coming. Digs the fingers of his other hand into Sam’s solid flank, crushing their hips together. Dean loves the weight of Sam’s cock against his abdomen, longer and thicker than the last time he had the pleasure of holding it. Seeing it wasn’t the same. Living in such close quarters, Dean’s been treated to glimpses (and several full-frontals) over the years, and each time he found himself fighting the urge to drop to his knees.

Getting Sam’s cock in his mouth is _definitely_ on his to-do list tonight.

For now, he succumbs to his need, running on nothing but adrenaline and lust. Sam wraps one hand around their cocks, adapting to the new angle. Dean has no hope of proving his stamina, Sam’s long, encompassing strokes spell certain doom, but he prides himself on giving as good as he gets. With limited space and nothing in the way of decent supplies in the shower, Dean settles for squeezing Sam’s ass, walking his fingers further and further in until he’s pressing against his hole. Warm water slicks the way as Dean plays along the rim, enjoying the way Sam squirms and gasps against his lips.

Dean tries to hold out as long as he can, but when Sam switches to fast, even strokes up the length of Dean’s cock, the choice is no longer his own. His come lingers only a moment on Sam’s skin, washed away by the hot water. 

By then, Sam is desperate, bucking against Dean and trying to find any kind of friction. Leaning back into the tile, Dean thrusts his hips forward, creating a groove for Sam’s cock. He fucks into it, lips at Dean’s throat, cursing and moaning into his skin. Dean can do nothing but encourage Sam with one hand still dancing around his hole, the other with a firm grip at the back of Sam’s neck.

Watching Sam’s expression go tight with pleasure when his orgasm hits is almost enough to set Dean off again. Age and exhaustion get the best of him, though. He hangs onto as Sam rides out his climax, his come soon lost to the heat and the spray of the shower.

He bears Sam’s weight for a full minute before his knees begin to protest, forcing them apart. Dean wonders if this is when Sam will distance himself from what happened, chalk it up to the stress of the hunt and circumstances they couldn’t avoid. Dean doesn’t want to question Sam’s intentions—whether this was a spark quick to burn out, or a flame to light the way.

And then Sam takes the bar of soap in his hands and cleans them both, rain-scented suds washing away the rest of Dean’s fears.

Fantasy and memory don’t hold a candle to the reality of having Sam back in his arms.

When they finally make it to bed, having foregone clothes after stepping out of the shower, a half-used bottle of lube pulled from Sam’s bag tossed somewhere within reach, Dean hardly knows where to begin. His brother is spread out on the sheets, offering whatever Dean wants. Sam’s flushed mouth, his pink nipples tempting amidst the patch of soft hair, not to mention his cock, half-hard and clean, all make for enticing ports of call.

Sam makes Dean’s mind up for him, dragging him atop his body and holding him there while they kiss until their lips are bruised, Dean sweeping his tongue across Sam’s lips and pressing inside.

When they arrived in Charleston, Dean was suffering as the void in his soul ate away at him, threatening to rob him of what little strength he had left. Now, his soul is so full, it’s painful for an entirely different reason. The change is overwhelming, relief and security compounded by love, the likes of which Dean never thought he’d experience again.

Sam’s arms tighten around him, and Dean realizes he’s been shaking, fine tremors running the length of his body.

“You okay?” Sam whispers, drawing his fingers up and down Dean’s spine, something he recalls doing to Sam when his little brother woke up from a bad dream. “Leftover adrenaline?”

“Nothing wrong with me, Sam,” Dean says, dropping his forehead to Sam’s chest and breathing him in. “Just having a hard time believing this.”

Sam huffs. Dean feels the small movement roll through him. “Yeah, me too. Long time coming, though. Right?”

Dean looks up, frowning. “What are you talking about?”

Unfazed, Sam returns his gaze. His hands have reached Dean’s shoulders, caressing the planes and slopes of his upper back.

“We’ve been heading in this direction for a while, Dean. When you rescued me from the Trials, I thought we were on the same page. We'd finally circled back to one another. I knew this was what I wanted. But then the angels fell and it's been non-stop ever since. After we banished Amara, and all the crap she put us through, I kinda figured it was only a matter of time. And then—”

“Then I realized what she’d done to me.” Dean sighs, pushing all those wasted moments to the back of his mind where, fingers-crossed, they’ll remain until forgotten completely. “But now I realize that was just bullshit. She just wanted me to suffer, and I believed her because it hurt so damn bad after she was gone.”

“Sometimes the healing’s just as painful,” Sam reminds him. “You’re good now, though, right?”

“Good as new,” Dean assures him, rocking his hips forward an inch or so, coaxing Sam away from this particular conversation. One day, Dean will tell Sam just how important that kiss in the manor was, and how Dean might not have survived his battle royale with Emma Summerlin if Sam hadn't acted on his feelings. One day, far in the future, he'll tell Sam everything. Tonight, he has better things to do.

“Sounds promising,” Sam teases, answering with a shimmy of his own, stoking the fire.

“You have no idea, Sammy. I’ve got a list—”

Sam grins up at him. “A list? We’ve just banished dozens of ghosts, Dean, and you had to fight off a knife-wielding blogger. Pick one thing.”

Dean stops moving, pretending to consider his options even though his mouth is already watering, until Sam is fed up, flipping them with roar that is equal parts amusing and arousing.

Sam’s lips tickle the edge of Dean’s ear. “You want to suck me off, don’t you?” He grinds his hips into Dean’s. “You always did like putting that mouth of yours to good use.”

Flames lick at Dean’s skin. He can feel his face turning red. Sam’s not wrong. The first time his lips touched Sam’s cock, he was a goner. Sam was just so damn _responsive_ , Dean often had to struggle to hold his brother down, that lean body rolling and shaking under his palms.

Sam lets go, reclining back against the pillows. Head down to hide his flushed cheeks, Dean shuffles between Sam’s wide-spread legs, one arm over his thigh. Sam hisses as the first touch of Dean’s mouth lands not on his cock but on the sensitive skin over his hipbone, gradually gliding across until Dean is nosing through soft hair, inhaling more of that fresh, rain scent. Dean torments Sam by keeping his mouth just out of reach, the tip of Sam’s cock brushing his bottom lip.

“I’ve been safe,” Sam promises, his voice strained, as if that’s what’s holding Dean back.

“I know.” And Dean does. He’s usually the one buying the condoms, although neither of them have had time for diversions like that in months, for which Dean is thankful. “Just enjoying the view.”

Dean is so eager, so starved for this, that when he does get his lips around Sam’s dick, he takes too much, too soon, and comes up coughing. 

Once he can breathe again, Dean says, “Guess I’ve been on the other end of these for way too long.”

Sam runs his hand over Dean’s cheek and down along his jaw. “Feel free to practice on me anytime.”

Just like that, Dean foresees many lazy afternoons in the bunker, devoting hours to Sam’s cock and finding out how much pleasure he can take.

Dean settles into a rhythm, massaging the inside of Sam’s thigh while he trains his mouth to accommodate the length and girth of a full-grown dick. This was a hell of a lot easier when Sam was a lanky teenager. The stretch feels amazing, though. It’s messy, as far as blowjobs go, too wet, and there’s no way he can take the entire thing. That doesn’t stop Sam from undulating beneath him, groaning and losing his breath each time Dean’s tongue flicks against the tip.

Almost unconsciously, Dean has moved his hand further up and around Sam’s leg, rubbing the heel of his palm beneath Sam’s balls, pressure in all the right places. Throwing his arm to the side, Sam fumbles around for the lube and flips it towards Dean.

Hard to mistake what his brother wants. Dean’s happy to oblige. 

Sam is even harder to restrain once Dean’s got a lubed finger in his hole and a second slipping around the rim. He goes from enthusiastic to incoherent, gasping Dean’s name and trying to thrust with his hips. Dean keeps him pinned, smug smile ruined when he takes Sam’s cock back into his mouth. It’s difficult to coordinate his movements, trying to slide another finger alongside and find the best angle, but Sam is too far gone. Dean wraps his tongue around the tip, careful not to choke as Sam goes taut, his entire existence boiling down to a single sensation.

Dean pulls off just in time to watch Sam’s come shoot onto his stomach, his ass gripping Dean’s fingers. He absolutely _cannot wait_ to feel that around his cock.

Sam is slow to recover, hazel eyes watching Dean softly as he crawls up the bed to lie by his side. They slide closer, lips meeting naturally in the middle. This had always been one of Dean’s favorite feelings: the way Sam kissed him after Dean finished with his cock. Soothing, like a balm, so gentle as if there’s nothing to rush.

Dean’s raging erection would argue differently. It’s music to his ears when Sam whispers, “I wanna try something,” especially when that _something_ involves Sam squeezing what’s left of the lube into his cupped palm and letting it soak up some heat from his skin before wrapping that hand around Dean’s dick. He’s already primed from the blowjob, thick in Sam’s grip.

Then he sees the wisp of a smirk flash across Sam’s face and knows it won’t be that simple. Sam is keen to use his mouth, too, only his target is Dean’s chest, biting into the flesh around Dean’s ribs and kissing away the sting. Dean moans as Sam works him over, licking circles around his nipples and flicking the sensitive points.

“So not fair,” Dean mutters, failing to hold himself together. “How’d you know?”

“I have eyes, Dean,” Sam responds, laving over Dean’s left nipple until it’s as red as the right one, gingerly holding it between his teeth and tugging until Dean’s spine arches off the bed.

Dean thrusts up into Sam’s fist, fully appreciating the way the lube eases the friction—they need to stock up before they hit the road—as Sam lets him move. Dean has a funny feeling, a sharp tingle originating in his chest, that if he hadn’t come once already tonight, it’s possible Sam could’ve gotten him off using only his mouth. He apparently knows all the tricks, where to bite and where to be tender. Dean adds it to his quickly expanding mental list of things they need to try back home.

No chance to test the theory now as Dean already feels the unstoppable cascade washing over him. Clutching Sam’s face as he comes, this orgasm claims the last of his energy.

They’re unable to do more than kiss sluggishly, neither wanting to move until a trip to the bathroom becomes necessary. After cleaning up, they collapse together, Dean’s eyes closing almost before he hits the pillow.

Emma Summerlin is no more, the Benbows are safe, and Dean’s exactly where he belongs. If there was ever a day to stick in the win column, this is it.

Sam is the first to reach the door, pulling it open it before Edmond knocks a _third_ time.

“You don’t have to knock,” Sam tells him. “It’s your house.”

The man is all smiles. Sam had spared a few minutes to check in with him last night on the drive back from Nine Oaks to assure him that everyone was alright, and that they’d completed the ritual.

“It’s the polite thing to do,” Edmond says, glancing between Sam and Dean. “Besides, seems like I’m interrupting.”

“No,” but Sam is completely flustered, “not at all. Come on in.”

The three of them step into the kitchen where, before Edmond knocked, Sam had Dean pinned against the counter, hands under Dean’s gray t-shirt, well on their way to getting naked right there. It’s probably a good thing Edmond caught them by surprise before. Control is hard to come by when making up for fifteen years of not being able to kiss one another whenever they want.

“I won’t keep you. I’m sure you’re eager to head out.”

“We’ve got time,” Dean says. They aren’t trying to rush, but Dean wants to be home. Of course he does. He has Sam again. It’s a whole new fucking world.

Over coffee, they share a bit more about what happened at Nine Oaks, how they’d rushed in to help the family instead of finishing the purification ritual from outside the manor. The southerner appears fascinated. He takes a deep breath when Sam finishes his wrap-up.

“We couldn’t have done it without you,” Dean adds. “Finding all those ingredients for the ritual, the history of the manor…”

Edmond defers the honest praise. “It all belonged to Jocelyn and Robbie.”

“Yeah, but you were willing to step in and help. That doesn’t happen a whole lot in this business. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I did,” Edmond insists.

As Sam refills their mugs, Dean thinks about the assistance they received on this hunt. Edmond’s contributions to this case, Irene’s invaluable insight, Cesar’s ritual and purification spell, and even Bennett’s thorough knowledge of local history that couldn’t be found in any of the books or articles Sam found. The Winchesters couldn’t have cleansed Nine Oaks without them.

“In any case, I came over to thank you boys. You didn’t have to come all the way down here to help me out.” Risking not only their lives, Dean thinks, but their sanity, too. “You finished the job the Campbells started.”

Sam ducks his head, and even Dean has to look away before Edmond catches the expression on his face.

Edmond claps his hands and stands, pulling a piece of paper out of his jeans’ pocket. “Speaking of the Campbells, I’ve got something I think you boys might want to see before you bid farewell to the Lowcountry.”

Sam scans the paper. “Where will these directions take us?”

“To a place that’s special to the Campbells,” Edmond says, all joking aside. “You ought to pay respects to your own family.”

Sam and Dean look up at the same time, but it’s Sam who speaks first. “You knew?”

“Got that intuition, I suppose, just like Jocelyn. You boys reminded me of her, especially you,” Edmond says, indicating Sam with a nod, “but it was more than that.”

Dean doesn’t know what to think. “Yeah, but how’d you know for sure?”

Edmond merely smiles, the enigmatic expression of a man who will always keep some things close to his chest. “I have my own resources.”

That’s all he’s going to give them.

He sticks around for a while, offering a hand when Sam and Dean are finally ready to pack up the Impala and head out. Watching him talk to Sam, Dean can imagine swinging back through Charleston someday soon. At the very least, Edmond is sitting on a trove of information and resources that need to be preserved.

They’ll come back, Dean tells himself, nothing ahead of the Winchesters but time. For now.

“The Old Sheldon Church burned down twice.” Sam reads from his phone as Dean steers the Impala down an oak shaded, two-lane road. Through the trees to his left, Dean catches the occasional sparkle of sunlight hitting the creek that winds through the marsh.

“Once during the Revolutionary War and once during the Civil War. It was never rebuilt after the second fire,” Sam continues. “Whatever materials remained were stripped and used for repairing homes that had been destroyed by General Sherman.”

“Does it mention anything about the Campbells?” Dean asks, following the signs for the historical marker. “Or give you any clue why Edmond wants us to see a bunch of ruins?”

“Not yet, but I’ve only read the first two articles that came up.”

Less than a quarter-mile down the road, Dean pulls onto a large patch of sandy gravel on the side of the road, another marker proclaiming that they’ve reached the site of the Old Sheldon Ruins. The sign doesn’t reveal anything more than what Sam has already found.

“Guess we should check it out.”

“Or we could stay in the car, eat our food,” Dean suggests, thumbing towards the three take-out bags from Loretta’s in the backseat. They’d stopped before making the drive thirty miles south to the site of the ruins.

Sam somehow resists the temptation of the extra serving of mac and cheese Dean ordered.

“Come on, Dean.”

The church ruins—formerly the Prince William’s Parish Church—are remarkable. There’s nothing left now besides the brick skeleton of the building and its columns, surrounded by gravestones and monuments dating back several centuries. Across the wide property, massive oak trees, even more grand than those leading to Nine Oaks, stand watch over the ruins.

It’s beautiful.

Sam and Dean have the site to themselves for now. They wander silently, each walking in a different direction. Dean winds through the trees, stopping to examine wrought iron gates warped by time and the elements and a few of the large, stone tombs. Sam is inside the church, holding his phone up to take pictures.

Maybe he’ll start an Instagram, Dean imagines, grinning to himself.

As he’s checking out the arches of the main building, Dean hears Sam call out.

“Dean! You need to see this.”

Making his way towards the back of the site, well away from the ruins themselves, Dean steps up beside his brother.

“Look.”

He’s pointing to a row of small, unremarkable gravestones a few feet in front of them. Unlike the other headstones around the cemetery, these are polished, some of them bearing metal plaques.

“Guess I know why Edmond sent us.”

Each stone marks the grave of a member of the Campbell family. At least a dozen named, although Dean has a feeling the site entombs the ashes of many more. The markers span nearly seventy years. Sam indicates one in particular.

“Thomas Campbell,” Dean reads. “Jocelyn’s father.”

To the left, Sam discovers a larger plaque set at the base of one of the expansive oaks.

__**In recognition of the Campbell Family  
** Of Beaufort and Charleston.  
For their caretaking efforts and  
Maintenance of Prince William’s  
Parish Church and its grounds. 

_**The Town of Sheldon  
1985** _

“You think they meant our kind of caretaking?”

“Could be,” Sam says. “This place had a violent history, too. They might’ve needed to lay a few spirits to rest around the grounds.”

“And make sure none reappeared,” Dean adds.

Instead of getting back on the road right away, the Winchesters linger at the ruins. As the day wears on, they share the site with families and tourists stopping to sightsee on their way up to Charleston or down to Savannah. Sam grabs a bag of food and a couple of beers from the Impala, and they eat at one of half a dozen picnic tables set near the entrance, taking their time. 

Every now and then, Sam and Dean walk amongst the graves of the Campbells they never knew, noting the names. It’s odd, the feeling of being connected to a place like this, where they’ve never stepped foot until today.

Dean resolves to help Sam dig deeper into the family history when they get back to the bunker.

Late in the afternoon, Dean and Sam pack up and head to the car. Before Dean pulls out, he looks over at Sam, his thoughts once again drawn back to the last time they were in Charleston.

“It’s been almost twenty years, Sammy,” Dean says. “You ever planning to tell me what you wished for that night?”

Sam shakes his head before leaning across the seat to kiss Dean, choosing to keep his secret a little longer.

And that’s okay, Dean thinks. He doesn’t need to hear the wish anyway.

  


Go to stormbrite's [ART POST](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7235638)!

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **end notes.** The ruins, the cemetery, and the graves of the Campbells (who truly were the caretakers for the monument) are real, and that's truly what inspired this story.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! These days in fandom, every single comment, even a simple '♥' to show that you enjoyed this, or every kudos on AO3, are truly appreciated!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for ' Cri de Cœur - The Hearts Cry' by Kelleigh](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7235638) by [stormbrite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormbrite/pseuds/stormbrite)




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